The pressure is all on Gerrit Cole now to pitch like an ace — and make this World Series really interesting
Gerrit Cole did not do the historic ace thing at this time of year and insist on taking the ball with his team facing elimination in Game 4.
Fine.
The Yankees nevertheless won Tuesday night with him as a cheerleader.
So now he must do the modern ace thing. He is fully rested. The way the Yankees imagined putting the building blocks toward a baseball miracle was winning Game 4 when the Dodgers were throwing a bullpen game and then turning to their ace to lug them cross country once more. The bottom of the Yankee order, in particular, and the length of their bullpen — co-stars, basically — were the fulcrum of an 11-4 season-saving victory Tuesday night.
“We won a game, and having, you know, the best pitcher in baseball coming up for us [Wednesday] gives us, obviously, a sense of hope to take this back to LA,” Nestor Cortes said.
In Cole’s right hand will be the Yankee season, a bit of his legacy and a chance to make a little bit of history as the Yankees attempt to make the bigger history that motivates documentaries.
The smaller-scale history is that none of the 24 previous teams who have gone down three-games-to-none in a World Series have even forced a Game 6. The Yankees became just the fourth of now 25 to avoid a sweep.
“You got your guy on the mound, you got the reigning [AL] Cy Young award winner,” Luke Weaver said. “You got the guy who was great in Game 1. Got everything he needs in the arsenal. Let him go and see what happens.”
Cole was signed to, at the time, the largest pitching contract in history for this game. For the Yankees. For himself. They wanted the ace who could get them to The Canyon of Heroes. Cole wanted championships that have eluded him. In Year 5 of the marriage, here he is with a Yankee season and his legacy in play. With the kind of game that is both a life preserver for a team and a barometer for himself.
“That’s one of the biggest things that we talked about [after falling behind 0-3],” Jose Trevino said. “Get the ball in Cole’s hands and then, after that, get the ball in Rodon’s hands and then, after that, we’ll see what happens.”
They are still far from what happens, far from even assuring a trip back to Los Angeles. So it falls on Cole — now on full rest and with the ability to empty whatever tank he has left in 2024 — to get the Yankees on a plane again in 2024. Force the Dodgers to begin to more seriously contemplate the historic implications of blowing a three-games-to-none lead.
Cole said there were no conversations about him going short in Game 4. Because the righty missed the first two-plus months of the season with an elbow injury, Aaron Boone thought it would not be wise to push, even with the season on the brink.
But now on full rest and with the Yankees having deployed relievers for 11 ¹/₃ of the 18 innings on Monday and Tuesday, Cole must cover at least the six innings on 88 pitches that he brought in Game 1 while surrendering one run. They need a star to honor the supporting cast that enabled the Yankees to avoid the ignominy of being swept.
The bottom third of the Yankees’ lineup came in hitting 4-for-34 (.118) with 12 strikeouts in this best-of-seven. But Anthony Volpe, Austin Wells and Alex Verdugo had terrific at-bats and drove in the Yankees’ first seven runs. Volpe stood out most. His third-inning grand slam was game-changing and re-energized what had been a volume-less crowd of 49,354. Volpe, who was an 8-year-old Yankee fan when attending the Canyon of Heroes parade in 2009, played a game befitting his idol, Derek Jeter. He made a couple of sparkling defensive plays, stole two bases and used his bat and legs to create the first of a break-the-game-open, five-run eighth inning.
That first run made it 7-4 and until that point, Gleyber Torres, Juan Soto, Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton were hitless in 11 at-bats. But Torres smashed a three-run homer, Soto doubled and Judge drove in his first run of the World Series.
Follow The Post’s coverage of the Yankees in the postseason:
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The Dodgers at that point were in full punt mode, pitching a bullpen game and refusing to use any of their four key relievers — lefties Anthony Banda and Alex Vesia and righties Michael Kopech and Blake Treinen. They will all be fresh to back Game 5 starter, Jack Flaherty, who pitched so well against Cole in Game 1.
Perhaps that is a winning strategy. But it did allow a bunch of Yankee hitters to begin to feel good about themselves and the Bronx crowd to be very Bronx-y again (with the promise of more Wednesday) and to assure the ball would get to the Yankee ace.
“We knew in the back of our heads as bad as one loss and two and three felt,” Clay Holmes said. “We knew what one win could feel like and we have Gerrit tomorrow and then maybe momentum could build.”
The ball and history are in Gerrit Cole’s right hand.
