World Series: Can Gerrit Cole keep Yankees alive vs. Dodgers?

NEW YORK -- On Sept. 20, before a game against the Oakland A's, Gerrit Cole approached the lockers of the New York Yankees relief pitchers. In his previous start against Boston, Cole had called for a bases-empty intentional walk to Red Sox slugger Rafael Devers, a move that precipitated a calamitous collapse. Cole had lasted only 4 innings, placing pressure on his bullpen -- at a time of the season when they were all gassed. Cole still felt bad. He promised the Yankees relievers they could rest easy.

"You guys don't have to do anything today," Cole said.

Over the next 2 hours, Cole put on a pitching clinic. He threw nine innings, by far his longest outing of the 2024 season, and allowed just one run on two hits. Even after the game stretched to extra innings and necessitated a one-inning stint for closer Luke Weaver to secure the victory, Cole's point was made. Despite coming off an elbow injury that caused him to miss the first 2 12 months of the season and has shaved a tick or two of velocity off his fastball, greatness still lurks within the Yankees' ace.

He must summon it again Wednesday. The Yankees saved their season with an 11-4 shellacking of the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 4 of the World Series on Tuesday night, and Cole will take the mound at Yankee Stadium in Game 5 with the same burden, trying to send the series back to Los Angeles.

Cole understands win-or-go-home games, having started six in the postseason. And he knows pressure, not just from pitching in New York but for five years carrying the largest contract ever given a pitcher at $324 million. And he wants to be seen more as the guy who turned the most important games of his life into his playground than the one who held up four fingers before Devers stepped to the plate. He wants to be the guy who told the relievers to chill and held up his end of the bargain.

"It was a different feel," Weaver said. "It was like, OK, Gerrit, you want to go do it, we won't be mad about it. Do your thing. And he went out and freaking did it. I thought he maybe had 10 in him.

"When you have a top dog like that and he voices it, that's what it feels like to me for [Game 5]. You feel like they step up in big moments. He's got a different side to him, and when he gets into that killer mode like he did, it's going to be a pretty tough task."

This game -- season on the line, win-or-stay-home -- is exactly the kind of game the Yankees signed him to pitch. It's the sorts of game the Dodgers wanted him to pitch, too, when they recruited him during his free agency before the 2020 season and before he ultimately chose New York over his hometown team. With the Houston Astros in 2019, Cole had thrown an eight-inning, two-hit, 10-strikeout gem in a winner-take-all victory in the division series. In 2022, he helped the Yankees bounce Cleveland from the postseason with another division series win.

But in Cole's four other must-win games, his team lost -- twice with the Yankees (2020 and 2021), twice with Pittsburgh (2013, 2015). Still, his New York teammates have faith he will deliver in the biggest spots.

"He's the best pitcher in baseball, hands down," Yankees left-hander Nestor Cortes said. "He's done it for a lot of years and only gotten better. We all know he has talent, but he studies every at-bat, he studies every guy that he's going to face. He knows percentages, he knows tendencies. I'm out there trying to compete and throw strikes. He's out there knowing what percentage this 2-1 fastball has to succeed."

With Yankees manager Aaron Boone leaning heavily on his bullpen over the first four games, the imperative for Cole to throw well -- and get deep into the game -- is even more pressing.

Cole has thrown fewer than 90 pitches in each of his previous four starts this postseason. Whether he can match or repeat his six excellent innings of one-run ball in Game 1 -- against a Dodgers lineup that grinds through pitchers -- will depend on his efficiency. After months of questions about the viability of his elbow, Cole is as confident as he has been this season, hitting 99 mph with his fastball in Game 1.

"I feel now like I'm in good shape," Cole said. "I have a reserve while I'm pitching. So if I need to dip into the tank, I can go get it, and then I can go get it again. It's not like a one-time thing. And then familiarity both with myself and my delivery, how I'm moving, how well I'm concentrating the ball in the areas of the strike zone that I want to get -- I'm ... missing east and west very rarely anymore. Things are more defined."

Game 5 will mark just the sixth time Cole has thrown with four days between starts this year. Two of those have come in the postseason: a seven-inning, one-run bravura performance in the division series clincher against Kansas City and a 4-inning slog against Cleveland five days later.

Even if Cole delivers another gem, the numbers are against the Yankees now. Never has a team faced a 3-0 deficit in the World Series and even forced a sixth game, let alone come back to win a ring. If they win Game 5, they would have to take two in Los Angeles -- with a taxed bullpen, a star in Aaron Judge who has struggled all October and a lineup that was feckless over the first three games when the Dodgers weren't throwing their back-end arms.

Adding to the degree of difficulty is the fact that Los Angeles will counter with one of its front-end starters. Like Cole, Dodgers right-hander Jack Flaherty is a Southern California native, a former first-round pick -- and he almost played for the team he will oppose. The Yankees tried to acquire Flaherty from Detroit before the trade deadline. The deal fell apart when New York, wary of his back, requested a different return to the Tigers. The Dodgers swooped in, perfectly content to add Flaherty to their rotation, and he has been brilliant down the stretch, going pitch-for-pitch with Cole in Game 1.

Now they face off again -- a chance to pitch his team to a championship at stake for Flaherty, survival on the mind of Cole. On top of that, the start could be a factor in whether Cole opts out of the remaining four years and $144 million on his contract, a move that can be voided if the Yankees add one year and $36 million to the deal.

Cole won't promise the bullpen a day of rest this time, not with the last complete game in the postseason coming seven years ago. The Yankees don't need that. They simply want to fulfill the expectation posted on a videoboard in their locker room after Game 4. The clubhouse, it said, opens at 2 p.m. Wednesday. And beneath that, in all capital letters, was less a hope than a mandate:

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