NEW YORK — Gerrit Cole walked off the Yankee Stadium mound in the fifth inning Saturday to a smattering of boos, his afternoon cut short and his ERA freshly dented. The New York Mets had knocked him around in a 12-2 rout, and the box score told a familiar recent story: too much hard contact, not enough length.
The right-hander allowed five runs and nine hits in 4 1/3 innings, both season highs, and served up three more home runs. It was his shortest start since June and dropped him to 8-9 with a 3.67 ERA. For the Yankees ace, the line alone was jarring.
The homers were the loud part. Cole has now allowed seven over his last two starts, the most he has ever surrendered in a two-start span, and Yankees fans watched Francisco Lindor take him deep on his third pitch of the game.
Yet the numbers were not the most unsettling thing Cole offered Saturday. That came later, at his locker, from one of the most analytical pitchers in the sport. The words themselves, calm and measured, carried a quiet alarm for the Yankees.
The velocity is there, and that is the problem
Cole’s outing began with an weired episode. Cole generated just three swings and misses on 40 Mets swings, none on his four-seamer, and struck out only four. A high-90s heater that once overwhelmed hitters is being met with easy contact.
What makes the puzzle stranger is that nothing obvious is missing. Cole insisted he feels healthy, and the radar gun backed him up. His four-seam fastball averaged 96.9 mph on Saturday, in line with his season figure, and touched 98.7. That is a problem the Yankees cannot solve by simply waiting for his arm to recover.
The stuff still looks the part. The results do not match it.
The trend is not new, and it predates his time with the Yankees. Cole’s whiff rate sits at 22.3% this season, below the major league average of about 25% and a steady decline from the 34.1% he posted in 2022. The swing-and-miss that defined his peak has been eroding for years, and this month it cratered.
Cole acknowledged the drop is hard to isolate, and he pointed to a changed environment, including the automated ball-strike challenge system now in use, as one complicating factor.
“I think it’s hard to compare to previous years without pitching with the ABS,” Cole said. “I think maybe chase and swing and miss across the board is down. So trying to find where those numbers would be relative to this environment is something that we need to navigate.”
The Mets, in particular, have long given him trouble. Saturday was his 20th start of the season, and he now carries a 7.28 ERA in 10 career starts against them, his worst mark against any club. He would not blame the 2024 Tommy John surgery that cost him a full year and delayed his Yankees return, though he allowed it was a reasonable thing to wonder.
“Hard for me to pin it on one thing,” Cole said. “It’s a long season. Hitters are good, offenses are good. High-stakes games with good offenses, sometimes they teach you lessons. Like today.”
A cerebral ace with no clear answer
Cole is known for dissecting his craft in fine detail, a trait the Yankees prized when they signed him. So when he was asked why hitters are suddenly punishing pitches he used to blow past them, the vagueness of his response stood out more than any home run.
Pressed on what has gone wrong, Cole offered an observation that explained the symptom without touching the cause.
“A straightforward observation is that the hitters are seeing the ball well and being able to deliver good strikes to it, regardless of the pitch type or really the location,” Cole said.
It was a striking thing for Yankees fans to hear. Hitters squaring up every offering, in any spot, is not a tidy diagnosis. It is closer to a mystery, and Cole did not pretend otherwise. Asked whether he knew the specific adjustments he needed to make, he did not reach for false confidence.
“Not necessarily,” he said.
The stakes give the moment weight. The Yankees are chasing October with a rotation they expect to lean on in a short series, and Cole is supposed to be its backbone. A former Cy Young winner searching for answers in mid-September is not the script the Yankees drew up.
His teammates and manager rushed to vouch for him, and the Yankees have every reason to trust his track record. But the substance of what Cole said, more than the tone, is what will linger with a fan base watching the calendar shrink. It was not a boast, and it was not an excuse. It was closer to a shrug from a pitcher who usually has all the answers.
Confidence around him, urgency in the calendar
For all his candor about the unknown, Cole insisted he is not worried and will solve it. Those around him in the Yankees clubhouse echoed the belief, even as the timing tightens. Manager Aaron Boone offered a simpler read on the swing-and-miss issue, tying it to how often Cole is in the strike zone.
“I think part of it is the product of being in the strike zone as much as he is,” Boone said. “I feel like the stuff is there. It’s just that last layer of execution, and that’s the fine line between getting hit a little bit and not.”
Boone did not hedge on his expectation for the next outing, brushing off the idea of any lasting problem.
“I expect him to be right next time,” Boone said.
Rookie Spencer Jones, one of the young Yankees who watched from the clubhouse, put his faith in Cole’s mind and track record.
“If there’s anybody who can bounce back and know what to do, it’s going to be that guy,” Jones said. “He’s as smart and professional as any pitcher in the game. He’s going to be just fine.”
The clock is the enemy now. The Yankees could have clinched a postseason berth Saturday with a win and a Blue Jays loss, and instead must wait. With 14 games left in 15 days, Cole has at most two starts to find an answer he admits he does not yet have. The stuff, by every visible measure, is intact. The results, for reasons even Cole cannot name, are not.
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