Gerrit Cole Finally Takes the Bronx In October

NEW YORK — When Gerrit Cole signed his nine-year, $324 million deal with the Yankees in December 2019, he no doubt envisioned starting big playoff games in the Bronx in front of a packed house full of screaming fans. But while he’d taken the hill four times for the Yankees in the previous two Octobers, until Tuesday night’s Division Series opener against the Guardians, he’d never gotten to do so while wearing the home pinstripes. In his long-awaited postseason debut at Yankee Stadium, Cole shook off a recent rough stretch, dodged trouble early, found a groove, and turned in an impressive performance, allowing one run over 6.1 innings in a 4-1 victory.

Facing a contact-centric Cleveland team that posted the majors’ lowest swinging strike rate (9.1%) and strikeout rate (18.2%), Cole collected 19 swings and misses from among his 101 pitches (18.8%) and punched out eight hitters (29.6%). He allowed just four hits, including a solo homer by Steven Kwan, walked one and hit one batter. If it wasn’t an overpowering performance, it was nonetheless a rewarding one.

“It was very special for me,” said Cole of leaving the mound to an ovation from the 47,807 fans in the seventh inning, by which point the Yankees had come from behind to secure the lead. “The game’s not over, I left with traffic [on the bases], so it’s not the most comfortable time to acknowledge the crowd, but I certainly felt it and appreciated it… What a wonderful experience to have them behind us.”

All four of Cole’s previous postseason turns as a Yankee — a dominant 13-strikeout effort against Cleveland in the 2020 American League Wild Card Series opener, two solid starts against the Rays in that year’s Division Series, and last year’s dud of a Wild Card Game start against the Red Sox — took place on the road. And as with his troubles down the stretch this season, a recurring theme in those games was his inability to avoid the long ball; though he struck out 33 hitters in 20.1 innings in those four playoff starts, he also served up six homers (2.65 per nine) en route to a 3.98 ERA and 4.81 FIP. Similarly, in his final five starts this season, four of them on the road, Cole yielded 2.76 homers per nine with a 5.22 ERA and 5.26 FIP. He ended the season leading the majors in both strikeouts (257) and homers (33) while delivering a comparatively disappointing 3.3 WAR, his lowest full-season total since 2016.

It’s not as though Cole hadn’t found success beforehand, either in the postseason with Pittsburgh and Houston (2.61 ERA , 3.31 FIP in 10 starts), or his first 28 starts of this season (3.20 ERA, 3.16 FIP). But particularly with last year’s two-inning, two-homer, three-run disappointment in the Wild Card Game and his ugly final stretch of this season both hanging over his head, it was quite clear that this would be a weightier start than most.

While Cole held the Guardians to two runs in 12.2 innings over two starts during the regular season, with solo homers by Josh Naylor and the since-traded Franmil Reyes the only blemishes, on paper (or pixel) Cleveland appeared to have more than a puncher’s chance against him. While the Guardians ranked 27th in the majors with a .317 wOBA against four-seam fastballs overall, against those 95 mph or higher, they were 10th at .319; against Cole’s four-seamer, which averaged 97.8 mph, batters managed a .308 wOBA, the highest mark he’s surrendered over a full season since 2017. The Guardians were 10th against sliders (.280), and while the slider is Cole’s best pitch based on wOBA (.206), that Cleveland mark was still nine points above the major league average. And while Cleveland had trouble with the curve (.269 wOBA, 21st), Cole’s curve was comparatively shaky this season (.298); its Statcast value of three runs tied it for the least valuable pitch in his arsenal.

On this night, however, both of his breaking pitches were exceptional. Cole threw 26 curves, and the Guardians whiffed on eight of the 11 that they swung at. Of the 24 sliders he threw, they swung at 16 and whiffed on six. The only hit the Guardians collected off either breaking ball was a José Ramírez double in the third.

“I thought he did a really good job of owning the moment, being unpredictable, and I thought his breaking ball was really, really on point tonight,” said Yankees manager Aaron Boone afterwards.

Still, spotty fastball location… wait, here’s a picture:

…caused Cole to labor early, throwing 24 pitches apiece in both the first and third innings, and 62 combined through the first three frames. He faced just four hitters in the first, but had to work around a one-out error by Isiah Kiner-Falefa on an Amed Rosario grounder and then Rosario’s steal of second base. He struck out Ramírez swinging through a fastball as Rosario stole, then escaped by winning a seven-pitch battle with Naylor, who whiffed on a curveball at the lower edge of the zone. In a more efficient second inning, Cole struck out two while working around a one-out double by Andrés Giménez, this time needing only 14 pitches.

With one out in the third, Cole fell behind Kwan 2-0, then threw a 96.8 mph fastball right down the pipe. The 25-year-old left fielder, who homered just six times all season, launched one 360 feet to right field for the game’s first run:

Cole then hit Rosario on the left hand with a pitch, and soon loaded the bases. Ramírez doubled into the left center gap, though Harrison Bader’s quick cutoff prevented the fleet-footed Rosario from scoring. Naylor then hit a fielder’s choice grounder to first baseman Anthony Rizzo, whose throw home sent Rosario scurrying back to third after he’d broken for the plate. A grounder to third baseman Josh Donaldson off the bat of Oscar Gonzalez led to Rosario being forced out at home, and Cole passed his biggest test of the night by getting Giménez to chase a slider below the zone for strike three — that after Giménez had gotten the call on a borderline slider 1-2 — but again, he’d run up a 24-pitch tab for the inning:

Cole finally had a clean frame — and an eight-pitch one, at that — in the fourth aided by two defensive gems: first Oswaldo Cabrera’s running catch of a Will Brennan fly ball at the wall in foul territory and then Donaldson skidding into foul ground to field an Austin Hedges grounder and make the long throw to first. Cole capped the frame by getting a generous strike three call on a low curveball to Myles Straw:

The Giménez strikeout began a stretch during which Cole retired 11 of 12 batters, interrupted only by a two-out walk of Ramírez in the fifth. The run ended with one out in the seventh, when Straw hit a 102-mph screamer that deflected off Kiner-Falefa’s glove as he leaped. Jonathan Loáisiga entered, surrendered a single to Kwan, then got an inning-ending 6-3 double play against Rosario. Loáisiga, Wandy Peralta, and Clay Holmes — the last two of whom ended the regular season sidelined by injuries — wrapped things up by combining for 2.2 scoreless frames and providing some positive answers to questions about a bullpen that lacks a designated closer.

After throwing 62 pitches through the first three innings, Cole needed just 35 to get through the next three. He threw more sliders than curves through the first three frames (17 to 15), but more curves than sliders the rest of the way (11 to 7).

“I thought that there’s a conscious effort there to be a little more disciplined to the breaking ball at the beginning of the third inning,” said Cole. “So you need to switch gears in some situations to either [throw] a different breaking ball, or find a different way to get strike one.”

As Cole plodded his way though the first three frames, opposite number Cal Quantrill kept the Yankees in check. Though the sinkerballer had the third-lowest strikeout rate of any qualified AL starter (16.6%), he struck out five of the first 10 hitters he faced, getting whiffs with both his sinker and cutter. He did give up a game-tying solo homer in the third inning to Bader, the center fielder’s first in 15 games as a Yankee.

Things got weird in the bottom of the fifth, when Donaldson hit a wall-scraper into the right field corner. It looked like a home run, and Donaldson ran as though it was, but the ball actually hit the top edge of the padding and bounced back onto the field. Gonzalez relayed it to the infield, and Donaldson got hung up between first and second and was out while retreating. A video review confirmed the ball did not go out or get interfered with by fans:

Kiner-Falefa followed with a line drive into the right field corner, where the ball squirted away from Gonzalez for a two-base error on top of the single. Two pitches later, he scored the go-ahead run on a sacrifice fly by Jose Trevino.

To that point, Quantrill had pitched well, but he overstayed his welcome. He walked Aaron Judge on five pitches to lead off the sixth, and the big man, who swiped 16 bags in 19 attempts this year, stole second and took third when the ball squirted into right-center. Rizzo followed with a towering home run, launched at 39 degrees into the second deck in right field:

The Guardians had their chances against the Yankees bullpen, but a pair of double plays against Loáisiga and Peralta extinguished the threats and enabled the Yankees to hold serve. As the AL’s number two seed and the experienced, big-money team against the upstart Guardians, this is what they and Cole were supposed to do. On Thursday, they’ll look to take the next step towards the Yankees’ first championship since 2009.