NEW YORK – The New York Yankees have played half of their games and they’re on pace for 104 victories. They have struggled lately, losing seven of nine, but wow – what a start. Right?
The Subway Series is many things – two shades of pinstripes in the stands, retired stars in the suites, national TV crews in the booth for a local turf war. It is not a setting for perspective. A hot first half can evaporate quickly (remember two years ago?), and little problems can mushroom.
So while the Yankees are a long way from Panic City – that’s a Mets thing, anyway – they’re not too comfortable, either. Not after Gerrit Cole’s oddly historic start in Tuesday’s 9-7 loss at Citi Field.
Consider that the Yankees have played more than 18,000 games all-time, and this was the first in which a starting pitcher allowed four home runs while issuing four walks and striking out none. It’s happened only three times in Cole’s lifetime: by Milwaukee’s Cal Eldred in 1999, Toronto’s Brandon Lyon in 2002 and Detroit’s Nate Robertson in 2008.
Unlike Cole, who turns 34 in September, those pitchers were not coming off a Cy Young season. But Cole is also coming back from a long shutdown following a spring training elbow scare. In two starts, he’s given up eight runs in eight innings, progressing from 62 pitches last week against Baltimore to 72 versus the Mets, who flattened him for six runs and seven hits.
If this sort of shaky return was inevitable, the Yankees should have given Cole another rehab start or two. They expected the usual Cole, manager Aaron Boone said – kind of.
“He’s Gerrit Cole,” Boone said. “He’s capable and has been in a pretty good spot here the last month or so as he’s built up. No, I don’t think this is inevitable – but he’s not all the way built up out of spring. He is coming back from an injury and being down. The build-up matters.”
If Cole was building on Tuesday, he must have felt like a carpenter with a loaded toolbox that was missing its most important piece. Without his foundational fastball, the game was bound to collapse on him.
The Mets have FOUR home runs against Gerrit Cole pic.twitter.com/8MXKTUGlqZ
— Talkin’ Baseball (@TalkinBaseball_) June 26, 2024
The cutter played well, Cole said. He got his curveballs, sliders and changeups where he wanted them. But that sizzling heater, the one Cole threw harder than any other qualified American League starter last season (an average of 96.7 mph, according to Fangraphs) was missing.
“My objective is to get deep into the ballgame, and I’m not quite sure I’m ready to just keep sitting 97 to 99,” Cole said. “And we’re not in the strike zone enough with it. So not only is it an effort of trying to get 75 pitches, but it’s also like, ‘It’s not really going where you want to, Gerrit, so is that the most efficient fastball you can be throwing tonight?’”
Cole’s fastball peaked at 98.9 miles an hour in the first inning on Tuesday. But soon it looked painfully ordinary: Mark Vientos homered in the second off a four-seamer at 91.5 mph, and Harrison Bader connected off a 93.2 mph offering two batters later.
“Obviously we’re trying to go down and away, but we funnel a fastball to the top of the zone to Bader, which is generally a good spot to be against him,” Cole said. “And then up and in to Vientos, I think I would have liked to have a little more velo on that pitch, but I just fired it a little too slow.”
Cole said he’s met all the physical checkpoints in his recovery, and added that he never tries to throw at maximum effort on every pitch. What he’s seeking, he said, is that “blend of intensity and command,” like driving a car.
“Too much clutch or too little clutch can slip you out of gear a little bit,” Cole said. “So obviously it came out really tremendous in the first, had to make a lot of pitches, but the reality is we just weren’t in the strike zone enough and it cost us 28 pitches.”
Cole walked three of his first five batters, and while he escaped the first allowing only one run, the long-ball brigade soon began: Vientos and Bader in the second, Vientos and Brandon Nimmo in the fourth.
Cole found himself questioning his pitch selection, too.
“There were pitches tonight I probably should have shook to or probably should have picked a different pitch to go to a different area,” he said. “But I was a pitch too late and then my execution was poor, so I never really gave myself a chance to learn anything, to get a foul ball or to get it mis-hit. And it ended up in damage.”
The Yankees were down by six runs after Cole’s four innings, and homers by their leading men – Juan Soto and Aaron Judge, who hit his first grand slam of the season – were not enough.
Judge, whose slam put him on pace for 58 homers and 150 runs batted in, emphasized the need to be patient with Cole.
“This is this guy’s spring training,” Judge said. “Coming back from an injury like that, anything with the arm, you’ve got to be careful with that stuff. Seeing him come back and have the velo that he has, I think he was executing the location where he wanted, it just wasn’t as fine as what he normally does.
“But he’s still working back. That’s our ace, that’s our guy, and I want him out there every five days. Games like this happen, you’ve just got to move on and learn from it. He’ll be fine.”
If he is, the Yankees will be fine, too. But Gleyber Torres is a mess. D.J. LeMahieu is hitting .174. Giancarlo Stanton, Anthony Rizzo and Clarke Schmidt are hurt. Luis Gil, who starts on Wednesday, was rocked last week by the Orioles.
And have you noticed that the Cleveland Guardians have passed the Yankees for best record in the league?
That’s a lot to worry about. But then again, this is the Subway Series. Give it a day, and the outlook can change in a hurry.
(Top photo of Gerrit Cole: Jim McIsaac/Getty Images)
