The $324 million requirement for Gerrit Cole on Sunday night was to save the Yankees’ bullpen and save the Yankees’ season.
Considering the bedraggled condition of the relief corps, the ace almost certainly had to do the former to accomplish the latter.
The Yankees were reeling on the field and off. They had won only one of the first three games of this series — the opener, also by Cole. In losing the next two games late and devastatingly, the Yankees’ season went on life support. After a last-swing Game 3 loss, Aaron Boone and Clay Holmes had a “he-said, he-said” dispute over the closer’s absence from a walk-off 6-5 loss.Gerrit Cole earned the win the Yankees’ Game 4 win over the Guardians.The Yankees were uneasy and unnerved.
The Yankees found the fight that both the Braves and Dodgers lacked in losing Game 4s and being upset in their respective Division Series. For that there were heroes. Harrison Bader homered for the third time in this series, a two-run shot in the second. Anthony Rizzo had a first-inning RBI single. Giancarlo Stanton a sixth-inning sacrifice fly. Holmes and everyday Wandy Peralta each scripted a scoreless relief inning.
In their previous 27 postseason games, the Yankees have had just one other start of at least seven innings. Cole also did seven innings in Game 1 of the first round of the 2020 playoffs, also against Cleveland. In that period, the only Yankee to throw more than 110 pitches in a postseason outing was James Paxton’s 112 in beating the Astros in ALCS Game 5 in 2019.But it was how Cole got to 110 while under these circumstances that made the outing so impressive.
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