Gerrit Cole went into the postseason with some questions about whether or not he should be the Yankees’ starter in the first game of the playoffs. He had a good regular season, but he gave up too many home runs.
But the Yankees may not have made it out of the ALDS without him.
Even though Gerrit Cole’s playoffs ended with a bad start against the Astros in the ALCS (on a night when even a great performance wouldn’t have meant much without offensive support from his teammates), his two strong starts against the Guardians in the ALDS were more in line with his status as a $324 million ace.
But the home runs kept coming. Gerrit Cole gave one in each of his three playoff starts as the right-hander finished a mostly good season that may not have lived up to his or Yankees fans’ expectations.
After the Yankees lost the ALCS to the Astros, Gerrit Cole told:
“I had goals, I had things I wanted to accomplish personally in order to put us in a position to have success. And team-wise, we had goals which we obviously didn’t meet. I feel that there are some areas for improvement. But that’s just the game in general. We’re always just kind of grinding away, staying curious, and trying to improve.”
“The league threw challenges at us this year that maybe we haven’t faced before. After a few weeks off and prepping for next season, we’ll look to kind of digest that information and see where we go from there.”
Gerrit Cole’s whole season was full of ups and downs. He gave up 33 home runs, which was the most of any pitcher in the American League. However, he also struck out 257 batters in 200 2/3 innings, which broke Ron Guidry’s single-season team record. Between those two numbers, his 3.50 ERA ranked 30th among qualified starters, and his 3.3 fWAR ranked 23rd among all starters in the major leagues.
The home runs often cost the team because they happened in innings where a small mistake led to a big problem quickly. Gerrit Cole gave up 1.5 home runs every nine innings, which is more than his career average of 1.0 home runs per nine, which has been going up in the last few years.
Gerrit Cole was able to keep the damage from the home runs to a minimum in the playoffs. He gave up a solo home run in each ALDS start, including Game 4, where he pitched seven strong innings to save the Yankees’ season. In Game 3 of the ALCS, Cole gave up a two-run home run right after Harrison Bader’s error in center field, which made the inning last longer.
Gerrit Cole did much better in the playoffs this year than he did in the AL wild-card game against the Red Sox in 2021. However, it still didn’t help the Yankees get where they wanted to go.
Gerrit Cole said after the Yankees were eliminated, “I’ve never been able to pop champagne at the end of a season, so I’m used to this day, and I don’t like it.”
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