On a crisp Friday night where fans packed Yankee Stadium to see Aaron Judge set off some fireworks as he closes in on history, it was Gerrit Cole who erupted against the Boston Red Sox.
Cruising through the first five innings, aside from a Tommy Pham solo shot in the first inning, Cole got into some trouble in the sixth inning. But with runners on first and second and two outs, he did have a chance to escape the inning unharmed. Instead, he allowed a three-run bomb to Alex Verdugo that tied the game at four all.
After finishing the inning, Cole barked at home plate umpire Brian Knight for what he thought was a blown strike call on the pitch prior to Verdugo’s home run and was immediately tossed from the game.
“It’s obviously just an emotional moment,” Cole said. “I mean, first career ejection and after it I was pretty… I’m just a competitor, I’m just upset. It was the worst pitch of the sequence, he put a beautiful swing on it and did what he wanted to do with the pitch… the damage there is hard to swallow but at the same time, there’s some things that we did well.”
To his credit, Cole didn’t necessarily pitch poorly despite what his final line might say. However, the pitch in question was, in fact, low no matter what Cole or manager Aaron Boone, who was also ejected, might think.
The Yankees ultimately won the game thanks to Jose Trevino’s RBI single in the eighth inning that brought home Harrison Bader. But Trevino, who caught Cole all night, thinks the no-call may have affected Cole on his next pitch.
“Possibly. I mean that’s huge,” Trevino said. “As a catcher you want that pitch, as a pitcher you want that pitch. As a hitter you get another pitch to live so that kind of situation, we’d like a strike there.”
Over his last three starts, Cole has allowed four runs in each and has been decimated by the long ball, giving up seven in his last 17 innings of work. In 188.1 innings this season, he’s allowed a league-most 31 home runs.
What’s strange is while Cole is getting beat by the home run, he’s also continued to rack up strikeouts, striking out 26 during those same 17 innings over his last three starts.
“We went in to make some adjustments, especially from that last start and I thought, in terms of the quality of the stuff, the location that we took a step forward in that direction,” Cole said. “And then the damage there late is personally tough to swallow.”
Perhaps Cole’s outburst at the home plate umpire wasn’t just about that one call, but the culmination of continually getting beat by the long ball this season.
“I’ve done a pretty good job in my career not losing my cool like that, so I made it quite a while without an ejection so just let the emotions get the better of me there,” he said.