Despite ALCS Game 3 loss, Gerrit Cole has earned some equity with Yankees fans

With the Astros one win away from completing a four-game sweep in the American League Championship Series, Yankees fans didn’t exactly wake up Sunday morning looking for silver linings, but   they could take some minor solace in this:

Gerrit Cole seems to have answered most of the questions fans had about him regarding his ability to perform at this time of year.

Cole was viewed with suspicion by much of the fan base after failing to get out of the third inning of last year’s loss to the Red Sox in the AL wild-card game. That carried over into this season as he allowed an AL-high and career-high 33 homers in 200 2/3 innings.  

That suspicion was somewhat unfair, given that the game in Boston was a rare hiccup in a postseason career that generally has been very good. However, as Cole himself would acknowledge,  that kind of game in October — against the Red Sox, no less — would put any player behind the eight-ball with the fans.

But for the most part, Cole has come up big this postseason when the Yankees have needed him. Yes, he took the loss in the Astros' 5-0 victory in ALCS Game 3, but there were extenuating circumstances. He allowed a two-run homer by Chas McCormick in the second inning, but those two unearned runs came after Harrison Bader, distracted by a hard-charging Aaron Judge, dropped a routine fly ball to right-center by Christian Vazquez that should have ended the inning. Cole, very much against his wishes, was pulled with the bases loaded and none out in the sixth, and Lou Trivino allowed the three inherited runners to score.

Even with a final line of five runs (three earned) and five hits allowed in five innings-plus, Cole has a postseason record of 10-6 with a 2.93 ERA in 17 games, including 4-2 with a 3.49 ERA in seven games with the Yankees. The latter number includes the two wins — in Games 1 and 4 — of the five-game Division Series victory over Cleveland.

Game 4 of that series came after a stunning Guardians comeback in Game 3 put the Yankees on the brink of elimination.

“Preparing for this game, when he [Aaron Boone] told me I was going Game 4, you know, there’s an opportunity to clinch or an opportunity to go home,’’ Cole said after allowing two runs and seven hits with eight strikeouts in seven innings in the Yankees' 4-2 victory in Game 4 in Cleveland. “I didn’t approach the game any different. I just went out there and did my job.”

Cole threw 110 pitches in Game 4 of the Division Series and was none too pleased to be pulled after 96 pitches Saturday night.

“Yeah,” he said when asked if he felt he still had more in the tank. “I feel like, as a pitcher like myself, I'm probably mostly surprised. I always want to keep going.”

Cole later added: “I was just not ready to come out.”

Boone called on Trivino to face Trey Mancini, whom he felt had a couple of good plate appearances earlier in the game against Cole (Mancini flied to deep center in the second and walked in the fourth).

Trivino, though solid for the Yankees since being acquired just before the Aug. 2 trade deadline, still would not be considered one of Boone’s top high-leverage relievers, certainly not in the same category as Wandy Peralta, Jonathan Loaisiga or Clay Holmes. Trivino does get his share of ground balls, though, and Boone liked his chances of limiting the damage even though Cole struck out a franchise-record 257 batters this season.

“Obviously, it didn’t work for us,” Boone said.  

Focusing on Cole and Boone’s bullpen moves as the reason for the loss, however, ignores the real reason the Yankees came into Sunday night in a 0-3 series hole. After accumulating three hits in Game 3 — two of those with two outs in the ninth inning — the Yankees were 12-for-94 (a .128/.212/.223 slash line) with 41 strikeouts in three ALCS games.

Cole, hoping to get another chance to pitch in this series, said the Yankees’ offensive struggles didn’t enter his mind and were not something he would use as an alibi.

“I feel like it’s going to be a tight game against the Astros no matter what,” he said. “Especially in playoff baseball, it’s always going to come down to a handful of pitches that tips the balance of the game either way. As a pitcher, that balance is often irrelevant to what you’re trying to do out there. There’s a little bit of a motivation factor to try to pitch better and be the guy that picks people up.”

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.