Following the AL Wild Card Game, where he didn’t make it out of the third inning, Yankees ace Gerrit Cole flat out denied that he was feeling any lingering effects from a hamstring issue that cost him a few days in September, and then said the following:
“At the end of the season, we are all going through and wearing whatever we've had to overcome to get to this point. You know, the other team is dealing with the same kind of situation.”
Turns out, at least according to Cole’s agent, the latter quote had more veracity than the initial claim.
Speaking at the GM Meetings on Wednesday night, Scott Boras, the man who negotiated Cole’s nine-year, $324 million deal with the Yankees, said that Cole’s hamstring was in fact a factor all the way through the Wild Card Game.
“I don’t want to get into the specific dynamics, but he was basically dealing with things that didn’t allow him to repeat his delivery," Boras said.
Cole left a start against Toronto on Sept. 7 in the fourth inning due to a tweaked hamstring, and while he didn’t miss a start (his next came seven days later), he was ineffective in his final three starts down the stretch, allowing seven runs in 5 2/3 innings against Cleveland on Sept. 19 and then five in six innings against Toronto in his last start Sept. 29.
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Then, of course, Cole was pulled in the third inning of the Wild Card Game, a disappointing finish to a season where he was a heavy Cy Young favorite in the first half.
"As much as he tries and as competitive as Gerrit is, this guy works so hard. You just can’t replicate pitching in games," Boras said of Cole. "You can be in the greatest amount of conditioning and do what you do, but once he popped that hamstring a bit, it really obviously – you can look at his numbers – it had an impact on him. He tried to fight through it.”
Cole also dealt with a COVID shutdown in late July and, of course, the sticky substance/Spider Tack crackdown that he somehow became a central figure in…to everyone but Boras.
"Oh, I don’t think he was the face of that at all," Boras said. "I just think he’s the one articulate enough to talk about it. The reality of it is his performances post that and the implementation of the new rules."
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