Yankees signed Cole for nights like Game 1
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There were a lot of reasons last winter why the Yankees gave Gerrit Cole more money -- $324 million – and more years – nine -- than any starting pitcher had ever been given in the history of baseball, even knowing that Cole would turn 30 in September of this season. Cole was coming off a 20-5 season for the Astros, he’d struck out 326 batters in 212 1/3 innings, had been as dominant as any starter in the sport.
But these are the Yankees. They weren’t just asking Cole to be great in the regular season. They hired him to win postseason games, and ultimately the team’s first World Series since 2009. It all starts with his start in Game 1 on Tuesday night (7 ET on ESPN), Wild Card round, Yankees against the Indians, Cole against Shane Bieber -- who was better than Cole during the regular season, because Bieber was better than everybody.
Before he even gets to October, Gerrit Cole was hired to win this game.
Shop for postseason gear: Here is what the owner of the Yankees, Hal Steinbrenner, the one who signed off on Cole’s contract, said the week before Christmas at the press conference introducing Cole as the first true ace of the Yankee staff the team had had since they signed CC Sabathia as a free agent before the Yankees won it all in 2009.
“We need to win some world championships, and I believe we’re going to do that sooner rather than later,” Steinbrenner said, sounding an awful lot like his father that day. “I believe we’re going to do that.”
Then he clarified exactly what he had meant about the world championships.
“Plural,” he said.
Steinbrenner further elaborated on the signing of Cole away from the Astros, who a couple of months before had beaten the Yankees in an American League Championship Series for the second time in three years, this time in six games.
“There’s no doubt we’ve got an excellent core,” Steinbrenner said. “We didn’t make it all the way last year to the ultimate goal, but we had a great season. And there’s going to be more to come and, yes, we have an incredible team right here, right now. ... Clearly I felt that it was time to strike, and get that final piece that can make a difference with the way things are and had been going.”
Right here, right now. Like Tuesday night. That kind of right now.
Oh, sure. The Yankees signed Cole as a free agent with the full expectation that he was going to pitch for them in the postseason the way Max Scherzer and Stephen Strasburg had just pitched for the Nationals as they won the World Series. They signed him to pitch for them the way Justin Verlander had for the Astros in 2017 after the Astros made a trade for Verlander. To be that kind of ace.
They needed their own ace, still one of the most rare commodities in baseball. Needed one of those guys. Especially in a Game 1 like this Game 1 -- the beginning of a fast-and-furious best-of-three series. In all ways, this is what Cole signed on for.
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Cole had a fine regular season, by the way, even if he gave up 14 home runs in 12 starts. His earned run average in the short season was 2.84, not so different than the 2.50 he rung up for the Astros. His record was 7-3, and the strikeouts were there -- 94 in 73 innings pitched. But when you do hire up with the Yankees, you know you're hiring on for October.
“You’re supposed to win those 11 games in October,” Reggie Jackson has said over and over again.
This year, because of the added round, it is 13.
It won't technically be October on Tuesday night at Progressive Field. For all intents and purposes, it really is. Steinbrenner talked about Cole being the “final piece.” Of course, Cole is going up against a dazzling talent in Bieber, who led the league in pitching’s Triple Crown this season: wins (8) and ERA (1.63) and strikeouts (122). Of course, Cole can’t do it alone, any more than Bieber can. But if there is any true job description for Cole, it involves a night like this one in Cleveland.
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Cole wears No. 45. It was once Bob Gibson’s number when Gibson was one of the great October pitchers of them all. Nobody would suggest that Cole is Gibson, who started nine World Series games in his career (including three against the Yankees in 1964) and completed eight of them and had a 7-2 record 1.89. The Yankees are still looking for a Gibson game in Cleveland.
“You gave Gibby the ball and got out of the way,” Tim McCarver, who caught Gibson in his glory years, told me once.
The Yankees, despite falling to fifth in the postseason standings, are as healthy as they’ve been all season. This was a team expected to go to the World Series. They can’t get there if they don’t win two games in Cleveland. Gerrit Cole was hired to win the first one.