Gerrit Cole keeps Yankees in game after horrendous start
Yankees' Gerrit Cole on the mound after giving up a two run home run in the first inning during their home opener against the Boston Red Sox at Yankee Stadium on the afternoon of April 8, 2022. Credit: Newsday/Thomas A. Ferrara
Gerrit Cole was tired of waiting.
He had to wait through a long lockout, a delayed season and Thursday's rainout, and just as he was finally — finally! — about to take the mound on Opening Day at Yankee Stadium on Friday afternoon, the pregame festivities went long.
He slapped his glove in the dugout and yelled some obscenities before stalking to the mound . . . and then things really went downhill. He allowed three runs in the first inning and was booed only minutes into the first game of the season (he would have been more than happy to have to wait longer for that).
But his time finally came: Despite an extremely rocky start, Cole, who was on a shorter leash than usual because of the shortened spring training, settled down and pitched the way the Yankees hoped he would. After falling behind by two runs after six pitches and three runs after 14 pitches, he finished his four-inning stint with three scoreless innings, allowing the Yankees to come back and beat the Red Sox, 6-5, in 11 innings.
The first four batters of the game reached on a four-pitch walk, a two-run homer by Rafael Devers, a single by Xander Bogaerts and an RBI double by J.D. Martinez, but Cole allowed only two more baserunners after that — a hit batsman that was erased by a double play in the second and a leadoff single that led to nothing in the fourth.
In the Yankees' most recent game that counted, Cole had been knocked out in the third inning by the Red Sox in Boston's 6-2 victory in the wild-card game last October.
“Obviously, a very tough way to start your season, but I think he kind of embodied what we were today,” Aaron Boone said. “He didn’t fold the tent. It could have been a not get out of the first inning, the way it was going, and he settled in and started executing pitches. And I thought he pitched really well the rest of the way . . . I thought that’s a great example of it not going your way and it not going well early and you just keep on competing, and that’s what he did.”
Cole pitched only twice in spring training, throwing 64 pitches in his last outing on April 1 — significantly lower than the number he’d usually throw in his final exhibition start. He threw 68 pitches Friday, 42 for strikes.
The shortened spring training affected him “just in the fact that he wasn’t in a position to go out for the fifth,” Boone said. “He probably had seven, 10 pitches [left], but I felt like, man, what he was able to give us after that first inning, after those first four hitters, really, I thought it was the right time to get him. I actually feel like he’s physically really good right now, pretty sharp outside the first couple hitters, so I think the biggest thing is just him not being built up, but I think stuff-wise and pitching-wise, he’s good.”
Cole said the Red Sox simply put good swings on his early pitches but that they had less luck when he better established his off-speed stuff and challenged the zone more.
It was his fourth Opening Day start and his third straight as a Yankee. It probably was the most bizarre one, mostly because of the lockout ramifications but partly because of the longer pregame, which included the Ukrainian and American national anthems and a first pitch thrown by Billy Crystal.
“That was an unforeseen challenge,” Cole said tersely. “The festivities got a little away from the schedule.” It was just a reaction, he said, to “when you expect something and you don’t get it.”
Either way, he got what he wanted — even after a long wait.
“It’s a big win, Opening Day, getting off on the right foot, and I think these games are always just a little more elevated between these two clubs but I think more so” Friday, he said. “We just all kind of settled in and started to play some really good baseball and we pushed over the winning run when it’s all said and done.”
Laura Albanese is the Mets beat writer for Newsday. She's been covering MLB since 2014 after starting at Newsday as an intern seven years earlier.
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