Gerrit Cole delivers dominant performance as Yankees clinch AL East with win over Orioles: ‘You’ve got to go out and get it’

NEW YORK – Gerrit Cole’s evening was marked by three solo walks.

The first came around 6:20 p.m. The Yankees ace strutted to the home bullpen in full uniform to warm up for his start. As he moved slowly across the checkered outfield turf, quiet cheers erupted from a group of early-arriving fans along the right field line. It was Cole’s first home game since a stinker against the Red Sox on September 14th in which he became the talk of baseball when he intentionally walked Rafael Devers with the bases empty. Some Yankees fans booed him from the mound that afternoon.

A few hours later, around 9:15 p.m., Cole took a much shorter walk, still alone, from the hill to the shelter. The reigning AL Cy Young winner had just dismantled the Orioles’ lineup over 6 2/3 scoreless innings. His Yankees, needing a win to win the AL East, led 7-0. An appreciative, raucous crowd at Yankee Stadium stood and cheered. Cole tipped his cap, high-fived through a tunnel of pinstripes, and descended into the clubhouse.

Around 10:20 p.m., Cole retraced those steps.

Wearing a dark blue “WE OWN THE EAST” T-shirt soaked in champagne, the $324 million man hurried up the stairs to the dugout and onto the field. Most of his teammates were waiting in midfield, eagerly preparing for a team photo. Some, including team captain and AL MVP favorite Aaron Judge, carried gold bottles. Cole, his eyes dull and bloodshot from celebratory drinking, hurried across the diamond to join the party he had made possible.

The Yankees, as they have done for the first two and a half months of this season, waited for their ace.

“(Tonight) was really just a taste of his brilliance,” Yankees captain Aaron Boone gushed after the game.

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Cole, the club’s most reliable pitcher since signing with New York in December 2019, began 2024 in a haze of uncertainty. During spring training, the 34-year-old experienced soreness in his right elbow. Players and club, knowing that such pain is so often a precursor to Tommy John surgery, feared the worst. On March 13, the Yankees announced that Cole had not suffered a torn ligament but would be sidelined for at least two more months to rest his ailing arm.

The team dodged the cannonball but caught some shrapnel. There was a threat of a significant stretch without its most important thrower.

Cole didn’t drop a mound until May 4th. He didn’t make a major league start until June 19 and didn’t throw a pitch in the sixth inning until July 12. Even after his somewhat miraculous return, there were still questions about his effectiveness. After eight starts, he had a 5.09 ERA. But since August 10, he’s been the Cole of old, absolutely brilliant with a 2.15 ERA in a string of nine starts, including a gem in Oakland, driving in a complete game and a run in his final outing.

On Thursday, he gave the Yankees a win and a division title. In the game against Orioles star Corbin Burnes, the Yankees took an early 1-0 lead thanks to a solo home run by Giancarlo Stanton. Otherwise, Burnes was sensational. But Cole was better, hitting 98 mph and throwing zero after zero on the scoreboard. At one point he became frustrated with a call from home plate umpire David Rackley and the daggers pierced him on the way to the dugout after the inning.

He looked nothing like the man who had dodged danger against the Red Sox two weeks earlier.

“I thought we mixed really well,” Cole said after the game. “I found Austin (Wells) to be really sharp in our readings. We played great defense. G (Stanton) put them in the (second) round, which gave us a little cushion to keep attacking.”

Cole’s opponent exited after the fifth period with the score 1-0, and the Orioles were probably hoping to keep Burnes rested for Game 1 of the Wild Card Series next week. New York seized the opportunity and scored a sixth run in six runs against Baltimore’s overpowering bullpen. Aaron Judge added a stunning smash in the seventh, his 58th of the season. He has hit a home run in five straight games.

Boone admitted in his postgame press conference that he hadn’t even noticed the streak. This is the dull brilliance of the game’s best batsman.

Overall, it was a performance that represented the best version of the 2024 Yankees: shutdown starting pitching and a powerful, star-studded offense capable of overwhelming the opponent’s weaker relievers.

The Yankees could very well face the same Orioles team that many prognosticators have picked to win the division next month, if the games really matter. There’s no question that a struggling Baltimore team’s summer swoon played a role in New York’s division title. But when the Orioles fell off a cliff in August, the Yankees persevered. Given the high expectations placed on this team, overcoming adversity and winning the AL East is an accomplishment in itself.

Winning in the Bronx is, in some ways, a higher level and a more difficult task. Every little mistake becomes a headline in YankeeWorld. This means the stakes are higher, the highs are higher, and the lows are lower. Control is omnipresent, like the constant hum of noise that fills this city. Boone, who has been at the helm since 2018, understands this dynamic. This also applies to Judge and Cole.

That’s why you signed up here. Pressure makes diamonds, as they say, and no one has more of both than the New York Yankees. In this city it’s always World Series or bust – an unfair decree given the ever-increasing randomness of baseball’s postseason tournaments. But here’s the reality: The true measure of any Yankees season is what happens when the weather gets colder.

It was humid on Thursday, but Gerrit Cole seemed prepared for the cold.

“It was a special evening,” he said after the game. “That’s what you want as a player. The division is within our grasp.”

“You have to go out there and get it.”