NEW YORK — Something looked off before Gerrit Cole ever threw a pitch. There was a brief, unexplained pause on the Yankee Stadium mound Saturday afternoon, a hitch in the routine that a veteran of his stature rarely shows. Then the game started, and the afternoon fell apart in a hurry.
Yankees beat reporter Bryan Hoch flagged the delay in real time as Cole readied himself to face Francisco Lindor to open the Subway Series matinee. The pause had a mundane explanation. Like many veteran starters, Cole keeps a rigid pre-start routine, and he declined to throw his first pitch before the game’s official start time. The content page Jomboy Media posted video of the sequence to social media.
Whatever the reason for the wait, the result came fast. Three pitches after he finally began, Lindor pulled a changeup over the right-field wall. The Mets were off, and Cole was already behind.
It would be easy to draw a line between the two, the strange pause and the immediate damage. That line does not exist. There is no evidence the delay rattled Cole or caused what followed, and he has never blamed a slow start for a fast unraveling.
What followed, though, was far harder to wave off. By the time manager Aaron Boone came to get him, Cole had authored one of his ugliest outings since returning from Tommy John surgery, and the box score pointed to a problem that has nothing to do with a pregame hitch.
The stakes raise the temperature on every Cole start now. The Yankees did not sign him to be a back-end innings-eater. They signed him to start Game 1 in October, and each rough outing this month chips at the assumption that he can still be that pitcher when it counts.
So the pregame curiosity, the pause that Yankees fans buzzed about online, quickly became the least interesting thing about the day. The numbers Cole left behind told a story that no delay could explain away.
A home run problem that keeps getting worse
The Mets hammered Cole for five earned runs and nine hits in just 4 1/3 innings of a 12-2 rout. He served up three home runs, took the loss and watched his ERA climb to 3.67. The long ball, not the delay, was the story.
Lindor’s leadoff shot was only the start. Luis Torrens launched a two-run homer in the second. Rookie Carson Benge went deep in the third, making it three home runs in the first three innings. Benge later singled home Juan Soto in the fifth to finish Cole’s day.
The pattern did not appear out of nowhere. In his previous start in San Diego, Cole opened the game by allowing three consecutive home runs and gave up four in the Yankees loss. Saturday marked the second straight start in which the game’s first batter took him deep.
Add it up and Cole has surrendered seven home runs across his last two starts. According to ESPN’s Jorge Castillo, that is the most he has ever allowed in any two-start span in his major league career.
The number that reframes Yankees concern
Here is the statistic that turns a rough week into a real question. In 2023, when Cole won the AL Cy Young Award, he allowed 20 home runs across 209 innings. This season, he has already given up 20 home runs in just 115 1/3 innings.
That is the same home run total in barely more than half the workload. For a pitcher whose peak was built on limiting damage, the rate of hard contact is the alarming part for the Yankees, not the raw count.
The velocity offers no easy explanation for the Yankees. Cole’s fastball averaged about 96.9 mph on Saturday, a sign his arm strength has returned after surgery. He is not a diminished thrower searching for lost speed.
The contact tells the story instead. NBC Sports noted that 14 of the 18 balls put in play against Cole were hit hard, while he drew just three swings and misses on 40 Mets swings. Hitters are not being overpowered. They are squaring him up.
Cole owns the slump in his own words
The pregame pause, followed instantly by a leadoff homer, gave frustrated Yankees fans an easy target, and reaction poured out online, some of it harsh enough to tell Cole to walk away. He did not hide from the slump. Speaking to The Athletic’s Brendan Kuty on Sunday, he acknowledged the problem runs deeper than one afternoon.
“It’s something that we’ve got to figure out, for sure,” Cole said. “This is one of those times of the season I think we’ve got to start making adjustments. Sometimes adjustments are hard. But that’s the demand of the game. You’ve got to find a way to get through it and get forward.”
He was even more pointed about the disconnect between his stuff and his results, a self-diagnosis that lines up with the hard-contact numbers.
“It’s a long season. Hitters are good. Offenses are good. High-stakes games with good offenses, sometimes they teach you lessons,” Cole said. “I think maybe chase and swing and miss across the board is down. But at the same time, the stuff isn’t just performing like you’d expect it to perform. So there’s something there that we need to figure out.”
The trend backs up his concern. Cole has allowed 15 earned runs across his last four starts, a slide that has spanned outings against the Astros, Angels, Padres and now the Mets. It is no longer a one-game blip.
Timing that could hardly be worse for Yankees
The stumble landed at the wrong moment for a team with October in sight. The Yankees had entered Saturday at 85-62, riding a four-game winning streak and closing in on a playoff berth after Friday’s 6-4 win over the Mets.
Instead, the Yankees fell to 85-63 and pushed back a potential clinch. Pitching coach Matt Blake visited the mound during the early damage, but the barrage continued. The Mets hit six home runs, a Subway Series record against Yankees pitching, with Lindor adding an eighth-inning grand slam off the bullpen.
With Cam Schlittler pitching way into the AL Cy Young conversation, Carlos Rodon, Max Fried and Will Warren, all in goos form, the Yankees are no longer built around Cole alone.
But Cole is the six-time All-Star and former Cy Young winner the Yankees signed to a nine-year, $324 million contract precisely to start the biggest games. He is 36 now, and his reputation cannot fix his command for him.
He returned May 22 after a 569-day absence and was expected to anchor a postseason rotation. But the recent version raises a different question entirely for the Yankees. With roughly two starts left before the playoffs, can they hand Cole an October start if hitters keep punishing his mistakes at this rate?
The window is closing. The odd pause before the first pitch will be forgotten by Monday. The home runs will not, not with October near and the Yankees still hunting for the ace who once made them the team no one wanted to face in a short series.
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