Gerrit Cole believes in Yankees, and he'll try to give them a good start

Gerrit Cole wholeheartedly agrees with the Yankees’ owner.

On March 16, Hal Steinbrenner said he sees the Yankees entering the 2022 season as a “championship-caliber” club.

Does Cole also believe  the Yankees have the goods to capture the franchise’s 28th World Series title and first since 2009?

That, he said Thursday, would be a "correct assumption.''

“Because we have the guys in the room to do it, the guys in the front office, coaching staff to prepare us, [the] ownership to go out and get anything that we seemingly need to push  it over the line,” said Cole, who will get the ball Friday afternoon in the season opener against Nathan Eovaldi and the Red Sox at the Stadium. “We’re all kind of connected in our same goal and we have a much more versatile team that allows us to win different types of ballgames. It’s nice to blow a team out, but that’s not going to happen on a nightly basis, as we’ve seen time and time again.”

As for his mindset going into Friday, Cole said it’s a day that presents the opportunity to get the season “going on the right foot.”

He added, “It’s not that the whole thing can be won in one day, but any time you start a race, you want to get out of the gates well.”

And while it wouldn't erase the memories of last October’s 6-2 wild-card loss to the Red Sox — a game in which Col was knocked out in the third inning  — doing that on Opening Day would at least mitigate them somewhat.

Cole, who went 16-8 with a 3.23 ERA and 243 strikeouts — five shy of Ron Guidry’s single-season record of 248 in 1978 — in 30 starts last season, said the wild-card loss was something he carried with him deep into the offseason.

“It’s a sour taste in your mouth,” said Cole, who went 2-2 with a 4.91 ERA in four starts against the Red Sox last season, not counting the wild-card setback. “Frustrating game. In this sport, you have to take the good with the bad, and as a competitor, when you lose, it kind of eats at you. There’s a part of me that always carries along the scars that we get when we come up short of what we’re trying to accomplish, but at the same time, if it doesn’t kill you, it’ll make you stronger.”

He continued: “It’s not like, certainly, you’re bringing those negative emotions into this season or this matchup. More so use it [in the offseason] to prepare, get yourself up in the morning, go to the gym and get your routine as disciplined as you can and put yourself in a good position to hopefully accomplish that goal this season.”

Aaron  Boone agrees the talent is there to accomplish that but cautioned, “The reality is, talk is cheap. We have to go out and do it and prove it. I feel like we have the chance to be a much more complete team [than last year]. But again, we get to go find out now.”

As for his success, or lack of success, last season against the Red Sox, Cole shrugged and offered an interesting analogy.  

“It’s a pretty formidable opponent,” he said. “I just kind of see it as two stags locking up in the forest. Somebody’s going to break an antler every once in a while and nobody’s certainly going to back down.”

By Erik Boland

erik.boland@newsday.comeboland11

Erik Boland started in Newsday's sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.