The Yankees’ ace is finally getting his first taste of normalcy in pinstripes.
Gerrit Cole is entering his fourth season with the Bombers. However, his first spring start against the Tigers Friday night at George M Steinbrenner Field in Tampa — three shutout innings allowing one hit while striking out four batters, throwing 51 pitches topping out at 99 mph according to the stadium radar gun — opened up his first “normal” spring training with the club.
The 32-year-old inked a nine-year, $324 million contract with the Yankees at the 2019 Winter Meetings — four months before MLB and the world shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic pushing the start of the 2020 season back to July 23 beginning a 60-game schedule with no fans in attendance.
In 2021, COVID was still at large leading to talks of a delay and eventually to a revised spring schedule to limit travel with limited capacity in stadiums to open up the regular season. The 2022 spring season also began with a delay due to contentious labor negotiations between MLB and MLBPA leading to a lockout that pushed the spring opener to March 18.
The former No. 1 overall pick has had to make plenty of adjustments during his Yankee career. Outside of scheduling delays due to the pandemic and then labor strife, MLB cracked down on pitchers using foreign substances to get a better grip on the ball mid-way through the 2021 season.
“It’s so hard to grip the ball,” Cole complained in June of 2021. “It’s part of the reason why almost every player on the field, regardless if they’re a pitcher or not, help them control the ball. I don’t have a solution, but again, we are aligned in a lot of areas with the commissioner’s office on this. Please just talk to us, please just work with us.
“We’ve been living in a grey area for so long, I wouldn’t just hate to see players get hurt. I’d hate to see balls come flying at players’ heads.”
Fast forward to 2023, Cole finally has no spring scheduling conflicts and has had ample time to get used to playing by MLB’s new rules of using substances to grip the baseball.
The California native also enters this season in unfamiliar territory with the talent around him in the starting rotation. Cole leads arguably the best starting rotation in MLB with three All-Stars taking the ball behind him in the rotation with Nestor Cortes, Luis Severino and the newly inked Carlos Rodon.
“I first met Carlos a handful of years ago, working out,” Cole told reporters on Feb. 16 at George M Steinbrenner Field. “I was struck by just his raw strength and intensity. And I think everyone’s kind of gotten to see that a little bit more as he continues to take the mound over and over again and progress and get stronger and settle into his career.
“Just talking to him a few times since he’s been signed and since we’ve been down here [Tampa], some of those things I mentioned are still there. And I think that he’s in a position to keep getting better and hopefully for us get a lot better.”
The three pitchers that Cole is set out to lead arguably performed at a higher level than he did during the 2022 regular season. It was an up-and-down year for the power righty who registered a 3.50 ERA in 33 starts last season.
His kryptonite was the long ball that got him a league-leading 33 times, however, the veteran didn’t seem concerned about being prone to the homer earlier in the spring.
“Part of it is my style,” Cole said. “I don’t walk many guys. I throw strikes with all of my pitches. Part of what makes me great is my low walk rate. There’s a pretty good chance that when you face me, I’m going to be in the strike zone. If you get a pitch to hit and you put a really good swing on it, sometimes those balls will go out. It’s not like I’m going to give up zero home runs this year. I’m always going to give up a certain amount of home runs.”
Cole, however, wiped away all of his regular-season hiccups with his strong performance in the postseason. The righty allowed just six runs in 18 1/3 innings between his three playoff starts in the ALDS against the Guardians and ALCS against the Astros.
His most memorable postseason moment came in Game 4 against Cleveland when the Yankees were on the brink of elimination throwing a gutsy seven innings allowing just two runs and striking out eight batters and Progressive Field.
Entering Year 4 in pinstripes, there are no excuses — assuming the newly implemented pitch clock doesn’t have an effect on his performance — to point to for the ace as ending the Astros’ jinx and the Bombers’ 13-year World Series title drought is at the top of the to-do list.
