Yankees starting pitcher Gerrit Cole delivers against the Guardians during...

Yankees starting pitcher Gerrit Cole delivers against the Guardians during the sixth inning of an MLB game at Yankee Stadium on Sunday. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke

If Gerrit Cole ever suffers from a crisis of confidence or there’s a weak moment when self-doubt sneaks in, he won’t publicly admit such a thing. That’s not what $324 million pitchers typically do.  

After the first few weeks of this season, however, the rest of us had a right to be skeptical about Cole’s superpowers. And the humiliation from that dark night at Comerica Park stuck to him like his once-beloved Spider Tack this past week, whether Cole copped to it or not.

Every time Cole takes the mound, each start, serves as a referendum on his abilities, which made Sunday just another next biggest game in pinstripes. Fortunately for the Yankees, and perhaps Cole’s own peace of mind, he finally delivered like the money pitcher he’s supposed to be in a 10-2 pleasure cruise of a win over the Guardians.

Cole rode a fastball that averaged 97.2 mph, maxing out at 99.1, and showed the usual mastery of all five pitches (especially the cutter) in his 6 2/3 scoreless innings. He allowed four singles and one walk, striking out nine, before manager Aaron Boone  retrieved him at the 92-pitch mark.

Once Cole handed off the baseball, the crowd of 39,050 already was on its feet. About halfway to the dugout, he touched his visor in acknowledgment of the standing ovation. All was forgiven — at least on this particular afternoon — and Cole could now exhale for the next four days.

“Breathing is a good thing,” Cole said, smiling. “Everybody can breathe today, right?”

Cole specifically was referring to the laugher over Cleveland, a rare blowout for the Yankees, who handed him a 2-0 lead on Anthony Rizzo’s homer in the first inning and kept building from there. But you also could take that comment another way.

Seeing Cole with a 6.35 ERA after his first three starts had to produce varying degrees of anxiety in Yankees Universe — from the clubhouse to the front office to the fan base — and Sunday was really the first chance to ease some of that. With people suddenly willing to anoint cult hero Nestor Cortes Jr. as the Yankees' ace over the $300 million guy with the triple-digit fastball, it was long past time for Cole to assert himself on the Bronx stage again. Consider Sunday’s performance vindication.

“He’s Gerrit Cole — he’s one of the best pitchers in the sport, so he wants to do his thing,” Boone said. “And there’s that pressure of breaking through and having this kind of outing. But I also feel like it’s been right there at the surface. I haven’t felt like he’s in a bad spot mentally. You want to get untracked in your season, but I felt like this was coming.”

That makes one person. Cole  probably was another. But how many beyond that? Tuesday’s debacle in Detroit, in which Cole didn’t survive the second inning, was the shortest outing of his career. The five walks that night equaled the number of Tigers he retired, and Cole left with the bases loaded.

If that wasn’t a thoroughly humbling experience, then Cole is immune to self-reflection. But talking to him on the eve of Sunday’s start gave the impression that the previous few days were more than just another gut check. Cole recognized that Sunday was as crucial a start he could have in late April, and by extension the Yankees, whose World Series hopes rely on their ace living up to his contract.

“I thought he was more aggressive in the zone,” Boone said. “That allows him to gain leverage more often and then pitch off of that. We need him to be good for us obviously this year and that’s the expectation, so I’m glad it happened today.”

The Guardians’ lineup isn’t exactly stacked with All-Stars, other than perennial MVP candidate Jose Ramirez. Statistically, however, they had been dangerous, ranking second in MLB in batting average (.270) and OPS (.772) leading into Sunday’s game. But Cole dominated from the jump, whiffing  the game’s first hitter, newly minted Bronx villain Myles Straw, with a 98.6-mph heater.

Cole only grew stronger from there. The Guardians didn’t put a runner in scoring position against him and Cole retired 10 of the final 12 hitters he faced, striking out six of them.

“It was just him going out there and doing his job,” said Jose Trevino, who started in one of Cole's games for the first time. “Throwing strikes, doing what he does best.”

Being Gerrit Cole, someone the Yankees hadn’t really seen this season. Cole sounded relieved to find him again, too, before any cracks might truly erode his confidence.  

“I’m a human being, but I don’t really have time to dwell on it,” Cole said of his previous struggles. “We got bigger things to take care of.”

And maybe one fewer thing to worry about after Sunday.

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