Yankees’ aspirations hinge on Gerrit Cole pitching as unquestioned ace

The first two weeks of the season and three turns around the rotation provided the forum for this question:

If the Yankees had a must-win game and every rotation member available, who would you pick? Because here was Nestor Cortes showing last season was no fluke. He looks even better early this year, a combination of Jimmy Key’s athleticism and fearlessness mixed with Orlando Hernandez’s bravado and arm angles.

Here was Luis Severino offering bread crumbs that the Cy Young contender of 2017-18 is resurfacing — his 97.2 mph average fastball velocity was fifth in the majors.

But this was about more than what starters such as Cortes and Severino were doing as much as what Gerrit Cole was not: namely earning the largest pitching contract in history. While Cortes and Severino (who finished 2021 positively out of the pen) were continuing feel-good stories from late last year, Cole was extending concerns.

He had a 6.58 ERA in his past nine starts before Sunday, including when the Yankees did give him the ball in a win-or-go-home wild-card game last October in Fenway Park. Cole was dealing with a troublesome hamstring then. But what about the three brief, unsatisfactory starts this year? Cole had a 6.35 ERA going into Sunday. He was coming off the shortest start of his career in Detroit, 1 ²/₃ innings in which he walked five of the 11 batters he encountered, poorly navigating cold weather and the Tigers’ ability to foul off touch pitches.

That the Yankees nevertheless had a 9-6 record heading into Sunday without Cole pitching anywhere near expectations and an equally disappointing offense was a credit to Cortes and Severino, and one terrific bullpen arm after another. But the Yankees are not accomplishing what they want this year without Cole as an ace and their offense a force. Which is why the completion of a three-game sweep of the Guardians was so satisfying.

Cole and the offense were both brilliant as the Yankees had their first true laugher of the season. They won 10-2. They improved to 10-6, which tied them with the Blue Jays for both the division lead and the AL’s best record.

“Everybody can breathe today, right?” Cole said.

It was the exhale heard throughout The Bronx. The Yankees had scored in the first inning just once in the first 15 games. They scored in each of the first three innings Sunday to take a 6-0 lead (six runs had been their season-high for a whole game). Every member of the lineup reached base safely by the sixth. That included Joey Gallo, who between heavy home boos for three more strikeouts stroked a run-scoring double for his first extra-base hit, RBI and hit with a runner in scoring position this year (he had been 0-for-10).

Meanwhile, Cole was distancing himself from being the weakest link. The Yankees began the day with a brilliant 2.87 rotation ERA, but it was 2.18 without Cole. But Cole never allowed Cleveland to even get a runner to second in his 6 ²/₃ shutout innings.

One element that stuck out from Cole’s first three starts was his sudden failure to throw a first-pitch strike. He had done it in just 42 percent of plate appearances compared to 66.8 percent last year — the largest falloff for any regular starter between the two seasons.

And the first pass through Cleveland’s lineup, Cole threw a first-pitch strike to just two of nine batters. He said that was to some degree strategic; he wanted to avoid being ambushed early in the count when the score was still close. But with the big lead through three innings, Cole delivered a first-pitch strike to the 10 hitters he faced in dominating the fourth-to-sixth-innings in which he whiffed half of the batters.

His newly added cutter was a weapon. According to Baseball Savant, Cole used it on 18 of his 92 pitches working with Jose Trevino — the first time the righty was not caught by Kyle Higashioka since July 23, 2021. In the first inning, for example, he threw a cutter hard in to lefty-swinging Josh Naylor who whacked it foul. But that 92-mph inside pitch was now on Naylor’s mind and Cole was able to get swings and misses subsequently on 98 mph up and away, then further up and away for a strikeout.

“[The cutter] was really good,” Trevino said. “It was coming out like the fastball, so hitters had to make a choice on it — whether they wanted to swing or take it, and he was throwing it for strikes, which is why it was really good.”

Cole was really good overall. That is a must for the Yankees. His nine-year, $324 million pact remains the most ever guaranteed to a pitcher. The reason for doing so was the Yankees envisioned him as a championship ace. So Cortes and Severino can be wonderful stories of rising from rags and injuries.

For the Yankees, though, to get from here to The Canyon of Heroes, the surest route has Cole as the guy you unquestionably want starting the biggest games.