Oct. 6—The New York Yankees gave pitcher Gerrit Cole a $324 million contract to win the big games.

And Cole failed horribly in the American League wild card game Tuesday night. He retired just six batters before exiting his 6-2 loss to the Box Red Sox.

“This is the worst feeling in the world,” Cole said. “It happens to 29 teams each year, going home early and not achieving your ultimate goal. There’s nothing you can do to make it feel any better. You can’t be afraid of this feeling; you’ve got to get through it to get that championship.”

Cole faded down the stretch, allowing seven homers in 19 2/3 innings in his last four starts. But the Yankees turned to him anyway in their do-ordie game.

“When it’s all said and done, I didn’t perform the way I wanted to perform,” Cole said.

The Yankees have not been to the World Series since 2009. And since they routinely outspend most of their rivals — their payroll topped $200 million again this season — they are proving that financial commitment is no guarantee of success in Our National Pastime.

“The league has closed the gap on us,” beleaguered Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “We’ve got to get better in every aspect. Because it’s not just the Red Sox and the Astros now in our league. Look at our division, the Rays are a beast, Toronto, there’s some teams in the Central that are better and better, teams in the West that are better and better, teams that have closed the gap on us.”

Boone’s contract has expired after his fourth season and fans are calling for his head. As ESPN.com noted, the last time a Yankees manager was allowed to manage a fifth season without having won a World Series ring was 1922.

For what it’s worth, Yankees slugger Aaron Judge gave Boone a vote of confidence:

“There’s a lot of good answers for that besides being a great manager and leading this team the past couple of years, to winning over 100 games, his leadership skills being even-keeled through the ups and downs, the good times and bad times, that’s part of it. When you are the manager of this team and you wear the N.Y. and you wear these pinstripes, it’s a heavy burden. But a guy like Booney, man, he wears it with pride, shows up to work every day and gets us prepared the right way, keeps us motivated and gets on guys when he needs to. It’s been a pleasure the past couple of years to play for him and fight for him every single day. I could spend all night giving you reasons why he should still be the manager.”

Judge’s time would be better spent hitting clutch homers, but the time to do that came and went. Now we can expect an offseason of upheaval in the Land of Pinstripes.