Gerrit Cole insists that his hamstring wasn’t an issue down the stretch, especially in the Wild Card Game where he was pulled after two-plus innings with three runs in and two runners on base. He was also adamant that the Spider-Tack substance crackdown never affected his performance in any way, either.
But here’s the thing: to what, then, does Cole attribute his struggles down the stretch, which saw him post a 6.35 ERA over 22 2/3 innings in his final four starts after the hamstring issue, including his worst start of the season against Cleveland on Sept. 19?
“If I had a common denominator, I’d have gotten out in front of it for this game,” Cole said after the Wild Card Game. “We evaluate each game individually, and it just wasn’t the same answer every time.”
Despite the line, Yankees manager Aaron Boone actually thought Cole’s stuff “was there” on Tuesday.
“I thought the stuff was there. It seemed like he got his slider going early, but the changeup leaked back in the middle that Bogaerts got in the first, and coming back around Schwarber was able to get to a heater,” Boone said of Cole’s performance. “A little bit of a grind for him, and getting hurt with some slug with pitches that leaked back over the middle. Obviously tonight wasn’t a night where you get settled in and see what happens; a misfire on a couple and they made him pay.”
To that last point, Boone noted how it wasn’t easy to pull Cole in the third given “how great a pitcher he is and how much I know he wants it and prepares for it and competes for it,” but it was a difficult decision that had to be made.
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But it is more worrisome for Boone that he had to make it, or that it was the culmination of a rough month where Cole wasn’t the ace the Yankees paid $324 million for?
“I think it’s subtle. They haven’t missed a mistake on him, and that doesn’t always happen, especially when you’re as great as Gerrit Cole is. It seems like when he makes a mistake, it’s hit out of the ballpark,” Boone said of Cole’s stretch run. “Credit to some great hitters against him, but I don’t feel like he’s been fortunate with mistakes, because I feel like his stuff has been there, but maybe not quite as sharp when he’s one of the best in the game.”
So, then, does Boone think there may have been a health component to Cole’s struggles?
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“Health is certainly possible; it’s a fair thought, but he’s a gamer, but I do think he was sound,” Boone said. “He got COVID, came back, had the hamstring…add it all up, and those factors could be small, but have big effects I think he was capable of pitching like the dominant ace he is, but it’s fair to wonder if his interruptions could’ve contributed.”
“At the end of the season we’re all going through and wearing whatever we’ve had to overcome to get to this point. All teams are dealing with that,” Cole said after Tuesday’s outing. “When all is said and done, I didn’t perform the way I wanted to tonight, and I’m sick to my stomach about it.”
Cole at least understood why Boone pulled him for Clay Holmes – “we needed to get a ground ball double play right there, and there’s probably no one more equipped on our team to get that than Clay” – and said the cameras catching him mouthing “I’m out” was him telling catcher Kyle Higashioka to stop discussing sequences because he was being removed.
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The harder thing to understand, however, is where the Yankees go in 2022 and beyond if Cole, who turned 31 last month, is simply on the decline just two years into a nine-year deal.
“This is the worst feeling in the world, but it happens to 29 teams every year, going home early and not achieving your ultimate goal,” Cole said of the Yankees’ season. “But you can’t be afraid of this feeling.
You’ve got to through it inevitably to get that championship, but there’s nothing that really makes you feel any better.”
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