NEW YORK – Three solo walks defined Gerrit Cole’s evening.
The first one arrived around 6:20 pm. The Yankees ace, in full uniform, trudged to the home bullpen to begin warming up for his start. As he inched across the outfield grass, soft applause rose from a group of fans who had arrived early down the right field line. It was Cole’s first home start since the stinking September 14 game against the Red Sox, during which he became the talk of baseball when he intentionally walked Rafael Devers with the bases empty. Some Yankee fans booed him that afternoon.
A few hours later, around 9:15 p.m., Cole took a much shorter walk, still technically alone, from the mound to the dugout. The reigning American League Cy Young winner had just dismantled the Orioles’ lineup in 6 2/3 scoreless innings. His Yankees, who needed a victory to take over the American League East, led 7-0. An appreciative and loud Yankee Stadium crowd stood and cheered. Cole took off his cap, high-fived through a tunnel of pinstripes, and descended into the clubhouse.
Around 10:20 p.m., Cole retraced those steps.
Wearing a navy blue “WE OWN THE EAST” T-shirt soaked in sparkling wine, the $324 million man hurried up the dugout stairs and onto the field. Most of his teammates waited in center field, eagerly preparing for a team photo. Some, including team captain and AL MVP favorite Aaron Judge, carried gold bottles. Cole, teary-eyed and bloodshot from the celebratory geysers of alcohol, hurried across the diamond to join the party he had made possible.
The Yankees, as they did for the first two and a half months of this season, waited for their ace.
“(Tonight) was just a little glimpse into his brilliance, really,” Yankees captain Aaron Boone gushed after the game.
Subscribe to Baseball-B-Cast Rod in , , either
Cole, the club’s most reliable pitcher since signing with New York in December 2019, began 2024 in a cloud of uncertainty. During spring training, the 34-year-old felt a twinge of discomfort in his right elbow. The player and the club, knowing that such pain is often a harbinger of Tommy John surgery, feared the worst. On March 13, the Yankees announced that Cole did not have a torn ligament but would still be on the shelf for at least two months to rest his ailing arm.
The team dodged the cannonball but received some shrapnel. An important stretch was looming without its most important pitcher.
Cole didn’t pitch off a mound until May 4. He did not make a major league start until June 19 and did not throw a sixth inning pitch until July 12. Even after his somewhat miraculous return, there were still questions about his effectiveness. He had a 5.09 ERA after eight starts. But since Aug. 10, he’s been classic Cole, total brilliance with a 2.15 ERA in a string of nine starts, including a one-run gem in a complete game in Oakland in his previous at-bat.
On Thursday, he wished the Yankees a victory, a division title. Facing Orioles ace Corbin Burnes, the Yankees took an early 1-0 lead on a solo home run by Giancarlo Stanton. Otherwise, Burnes was sensational. But Cole was better, reaching 98 mph and throwing zero after zero on the scoreboard. At one point, frustrated by a call by home plate umpire David Rackley, he stabbed him with daggers on his way to the dugout after the inning.
He looked nothing like the man who avoided danger against the Red Sox two weeks earlier.
“I think we blended really well,” Cole said after the game. “I thought Austin (Wells) was very sharp with our reads. We played great defense. G (Stanton) blowing them up in the (second) gave us a little room to continue attacking.”
Cole’s counterpart came out after the fifth, with the score 1-0 and the Orioles presumably hoping to keep Burnes well-rested for Game 1 of next week’s wild-card series. New York took advantage and exploded for six runs in the sixth against Baltimore’s overmatched bullpen. Aaron Judge added a spectacular shot in the seventh, his 58th of the season. He has homered in five straight games.
Boone, in his postgame press conference, admitted he didn’t even notice that streak. Such is the dull brilliance of the game’s greatest hitter.
Overall, it was a performance that represented the best version of the 2024 Yankees: shutdown starting pitchers and a star-studded, power-oriented offense capable of overwhelming an opponent’s lesser relievers.
The Yankees could very well face this same Orioles team, one of many prognosticators’ picks to win the division, next month when the games really matter. There’s no doubt that a summer slump by a banged-up Baltimore team played a role in New York’s division title. But when the Orioles fell off a cliff in August, the Yankees held on. Overcoming the odds to win the American League East, considering the magnitude of the expectations surrounding this team, is an achievement in itself.
Winning in the Bronx is, in some ways, a higher level, a more difficult task. Every little mistake becomes a headline on YankeeWorld. That means the stakes are higher: the highs are higher and the lows are lower. Scrutiny is omnipresent, like the permanent hum of noise that covers this city. Boone, at the helm since 2018, understands that dynamic. So do Judge and Cole.
That’s why they signed up here. Pressure produces diamonds, as they say, and no one has more of both than the New York Yankees. In this city, it’s always the World Series or nothing, an unfair edict given the increasing randomness of baseball’s postseason tournament. But that’s the reality here: the true measure of any Yankee season is what happens when the weather gets colder.
It was muggy on Thursday, but Gerrit Cole seemed prepared for the cold.
“It was a special night,” he said after the game. “This is what you want as a player. The division is there for the taking.
“You have to go out and get it.”
