Roger Rubin: A healthy, effective Gerrit Cole would make Yankees' rotation an unstoppable force
Yankees starting pitcher Gerrit Cole throws during the first inning against the Royals on Wednesday in Kansas City, Mo. Credit: AP Photo/Charlie Riedel/Charlie Riedel
KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The sight of Gerrit Cole on a pitcher’s mound is still as amazing as it always has been. The possibilities he evokes may be more amazing still.
For the Yankees this season, there is no one thing that has made the prospect of the club returning to the World Series and winning a first championship since 2009 seem as real as the Yankees getting back their ace, the 2023 AL Cy Young Award winner, from Tommy John surgery.
He made his first appearance last Friday against the Rays and his six scoreless innings only upped the optimism for what this Yankees season could be. And with 6 2⁄3 scoreless innings against the Royals in their 7-0 victory before 17,007 at Kaufmann Stadium Wednesday night, he has only turned up the volume on it. The three-game sweep gave the Yankees four straight wins.
Cole turned the outing into a standing ovation-worthy encore by allowing just four hits and no walks while striking out 10. He was at just 57 pitches after five innings and finished with 79, including 59 for strikes. He faced only two three-ball counts.
“Man, he was dominant — he had everything going,” manager Aaron Boone said. “[I] feel like maybe the first game was a little appetizer and that was the main course right there. That was surgical command . . . It just reminds you who he is and how great and consistent a pitcher he’s been.”
“At certain points I felt I had a little bit of everything working,” Cole said. “[It’s] not very often. [but] it’s a good night when it comes together like that.”
Cole’s ERA remains 0.00 because of Aaron Judge’s laser throw from right field on Maikel Garcia’s flare single in the second to cut down Michael Massey at the plate for the third out of the frame. Boone called his play off a hop “a sneaky great play.”
“The game really got going with Judge’s play, he set the tone,” Cole said. “That just kind of elevated our play a little bit, and we rolled from there.”
Fresh off their 15-run performance Tuesday, the Yankees offense continued to hum. Ben Rice had two hits and three RBIs, Ryan McMahon had a two-run homer and Judge and Paul Goldschmidt each drove in a run.
Cole is the first Yankees pitcher since Mel Stottlemyre in 1967 with more than 12 innings pitched and more than 12 strikeouts through his first two starts of a season.
“I wouldn’t want to face him, that’s all I know,” McMahon said. “He’s making those pitches down and away, up and away, up and in, down in. He moves the ball around so well, it’s just it’s so hard to try to think along with him and have an idea what’s coming.”
Even while Cole was rehabbing, the Yankees had one of the best starting rotations in baseball. A healthy Cole back atop of it would make it exponentially better. He had elbow problems at the start of the 2024 season and didn’t get into a game until the middle of June. And against that backdrop he made 17 starts, went 8-5 and pitched 95 innings to a 3.41 ERA. Then, in five postseason starts, he pitched 29 innings to a 2.17 ERA as the Yankees reached the World Series and fell to the Dodgers.
In his 2023 Cy Young season — the last one where he was completely healthy — he went 15-4 and pitched 209 innings to a 2.63 ERA.
Judging by Wednesday, it’s pretty easy to envision him being at least what he was in 2024. And what if the 2026 Cole more resembles the 2023 version? It sounded like maybe the latter after Cole said: “When I first started throwing and I was able to get through the four-seamer better than I had been in the previous few years that was an encouraging sign.”
The thought of going into the postseason (too soon, folks?) with a top of the rotation that has Cole, Cam Schlittler and Max Fried pitching the first three games in some order is a tantalizing one.
Cole was slotted into the game against the Royals with the standard four days of rest between starts with Boone bumping Carlos Rodon to Friday’s series opener against the Athletics in Sacramento on six days rest. Cole will get at least one extra day before he makes his third start, but Boone wants him where he’s going to need him to be for the rest of a healthy season.
The idea of Cole being in that place for the remainder of the season? Give the Yankees that and dare not to put a ceiling on what they could be.
Roger Rubin returned to Newsday in 2018 to write about high schools, colleges and baseball following 20 years at the Daily News. A Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2011, he has covered 13 MLB postseasons and 14 NCAA Final Fours.
