Gerrit Cole ready to put his stamp on Yankees-Red Sox postseason history

BOSTON — Having grown up a Yankees fan, Gerrit Cole didn’t need to do much prep work on the meaning of Yankees-Red Sox.

The ace righthander "got it" even in the COVID-shortened 2020 season — his first year in pinstripes — in front of no fans, and he certainly experienced it much more fully this season in front of mostly capacity crowds at the Stadium and Fenway Park.

So no, Cole did not take the just-another-game approach Monday when discussing his taking the ball Tuesday night in the win-and-advance American League wild-card game against the Red Sox (and former Yankees righthander Nathan Eovaldi) at Fenway.

Asked about his historical appreciation for this kind of win-or-go-home at Fenway, Cole said with a half-smile, "Bucky Dent, right?"

All that was missing was adding the word "bleeping" between Dent’s first and last names (most residents here use a slightly more vulgar term than "bleeping"). The power-challenged shortstop’s three-run homer with two outs in the seventh inning gave the Yankees a 3-2 lead over Boston in their 5-4 victory in the 1978 division tiebreaker game here.

Cole mentioned past battles he watched on TV growing up — such as those waged between top Yankees pitchers such as Andy Pettitte or Roger Clemens taking on Pedro Martinez — and one day hoping to be a part of something like that.

"You’re dreaming about putting yourself in that position and coming through for your team,’’ he said, "and here we are."

Cole’s season in many ways mirrored the up-and-down nature of the 2021 Yankees, who needed a walk-off victory in Sunday’s regular-season finale against the Rays to avoid playing in a Monday play-in game in Toronto for the right to advance to the wild-card game.

Cole finished 16-8 with a 3.23 ERA and 243 strikeouts — five shy of Ron Guidry’s single-season record of 248 (set in 1978) — in 181 1⁄3 innings. But his journey there was far from smooth.

After bursting from the gate 6-2 with a 1.78 ERA in his first 11 starts, he went 2-2 with a 5.24 ERA in his next six starts. That downturn coincided with Major League Baseball’s announcement in early June that it would begin cracking down on the application of illegal substances to baseballs.

Cole, who back then said he would need to make "adjustments" because of the crackdown — the rule had long been on the books but was rarely if ever enforced — did exactly that, going 6-2 with a 2.34 ERA in his next eight starts.

Cole entered September very much looking as if he might capture his first Cy Young Award, but he went 2-2 with a 6.15 ERA in his last five starts, allowing 33 hits (including six home runs) and nine walks in 26 1⁄3 innings.

That stretch included an 8-3 victory over the Red Sox on Sept. 24, when he allowed three runs and five hits in six innings. The Yankees swept that three-game set during the season-ending 9-3 stretch that gave them the second wild card.

The first of those five starts to end the season was a Sept. 7 outing against the Blue Jays at the Stadium in which Cole came out of the game with two outs in the fourth inning because of tightness in his left hamstring.

He returned to the mound seven days later in Baltimore and allowed one run and five hits in five innings of a 7-2 win. Cole has said since that start that his hamstring was fine and reiterated that Monday.

"It’s good," he said.

Cole allowed 15 runs and 24 hits (including five homers) in 17 2⁄3 innings in his final three starts. Last Wednesday, his desire to establish his fastball collided with the Blue Jays’ desire to hit fastballs hard, and it didn’t go well for him.

"I think I’m just going to have to be on top of my game,’’ Cole said. "Going to have to locate pitches in big spots. I think some poor location to some really good hitters got us in a bit of a hole early, so it’s going to be a similar situation. They’ve got a lot of good hitters and we’re going to have to make pitches in those situations in order to be successful. So whether that’s making sure you nail the delivery or being in the right mindset to execute the pitch, that’s what we’ve been working on this week, and looking to bring it out tomorrow."

A game like Tuesday’s is reason No. 1 that managing general partner Hal Steinbrenner gave a nine-year, $324 million free-agent contract to Cole in December 2019. He was equal to the task last postseason, going 2-0 with a 2.95 ERA in three starts.

"The stakes," Cole said on the eve of Game 1 of last year’s Division Series against the Rays (a 9-3 victory in which he allowed three runs in six innings and struck out eight).

"When you’re starting off on this journey eight months ago, the goal is to be able to have the opportunity to play these games," he said Monday. "So you put in hard work, you grind through the ups and downs of the season and you keep pushing yourself, telling yourself that the opportunity to play here is kind of the carrot at the end of the road. So when you’re here, it’s a validation of all the stuff that you’ve put in and all the challenges that you’ve had to overcome. Just not everybody gets to play in these games, so I think that’s why we all enjoy the opportunity to do that."

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.