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In what could be his final Yankee Stadium appearance of 2021, Gerrit Cole walked off the mound to a sixth-inning chorus of boos.
Not platinum-level boos, mind you. Gary Sanchez gets booed louder for using the interpreter to which he is entitled. Nevertheless, undoubtedly, boos.
It’s what happens when you lose a huge game to the embarrassing tune of 11-1, their second straight embarrassing defeat to the sub-.500 Indians. And fair or not, unless the Yankees (83-67) — now 1 ¹/₂ games behind the Blue Jays (84-65) for the American League’s second wild-card slot — can pull off one hell of a revival and save their season in these final two weeks, Cole’s first full season in the pinstripes, largely stellar, will be remembered as well for the handful of pivotal games in which he performed quite poorly.
“I came in here to try to win a series and put it out of reach,” Cole said, when asked if he felt like he let his club down. “Yeah, definitely.”
It of course takes a village to register the disappointing result this team finds itself in strong position to execute, so it didn’t help that Cole’s teammates with bats greeted Indians starter Eli Morgan, who began the day owning a 6.03 ERA, with minimal firepower. After Cleveland jumped out to a 5-0 advantage in the third, Gio Urshela led off the bottom of the frame with a solo homer, followed by one-out singles from DJ LeMahieu and Anthony Rizzo. Then the big boys, Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton, flied out to center field, Stanton’s 102.9 mph ball carrying an expected batting average of .530.
Sure, a touch of bad luck hit the Yankees, key first-inning, top-spin singles by Cleveland’s Bobby Bradley and Harold Ramirez traveling at rates of 51.2 and 82.3 mph, respectively, as the first evaded LeMahieu at third and the second Rizzo at first. Yet when Aaron Boone opined of Cole, “Certainly his line is not indicative of how he threw the ball,” well, you shan’t overlook that hitting Bradley Zimmer and walking Jose Ramirez in the first inning gave meaning to the fluky hits that followed.
And that after the Indians grabbed that 5-0 advantage in the third, thanks in no small part to a Harold Ramirez flare that both the center fielder Judge and the left fielder Brett Gardner tried and failed to snare, Cole couldn’t end the party there. He surrendered solo homers to Jose Ramirez in the fifth and Roberto Perez in the sixth, and as the $324 million man said, “It’s a crucial game, and that was too many runs to come back from.”
The same situation occurred June 27 at Fenway Park, when Cole got hammered for six runs (five earned) by the Red Sox as the Yankees tried and failed to avoid a weekend sweep. And June 3 in The Bronx as the Yankees attempted to register a series win over the Rays and instead saw Cole give up five runs over five innings. And July 29 at Tropicana Field when the Yankees hoped to sweep past the Rays, only for Cole to allow eight runs (seven earned) in 5 ¹/₃ innings.
Nitpicking? Big time. Cole, who missed time with COVID, has registered his share of big wins, starting with the complete-game, 129-pitch, 1-0 blanking of the Astros at Minute Maid Park on July 10. His ERA rose Sunday to a still great 3.03. His 231 strikeouts place him only behind Robbie Ray in the AL. When you find that sweet spot between competitive and inconsistent as these Yankees have, you’ll face an inordinate number of games that, like Sunday’s, feel “must-win.”
As Cole said when asked about Sunday’s booing, however, “It’s a bad game, man. That’s New York.”
This is New York, where spending the most money in the league (and ranking among the highest average ticket price) is supposed to get you at least a seat at the October dance. And where Cole took them further away from that with time running out.
Where Cole, his next assignment Friday night at Fenway, surely hopes he gets another 2021 opportunity to improve the soundtrack of his season.
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