Gerrit Cole Flashed Ace Potential Despite Fenway Beatdown

Gerrit Cole's line against the Boston Red Sox looks bad, but there were signs that he looked more like his old self during that start.

New York Yankees pitcher Gerrit Cole (45) pitches during the first inning against the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park. | Bob DeChiara-Imagn Images

Gerrit Cole had another bad start at Fenway Park. Facing the Red Sox on their turf has been one of the few bugaboos for the New York Yankees ace, and this weekend was no different. Cole went 5.1 innings and allowed four earned runs. He also allowed two homers and seven hits. The one positive was the strikeout-to-walk ratio. He struck out five and walked two.

Cole has pitched against the Red Sox 22 times in his career and has logged 120 innings against them, not counting the postseason. He owns a 5.48 ERA against his American League East rival.

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For all the negatives, there were some positives, and it's something the Yankees can at least look at and see as a launching point for his next start. After being knocked around by the likes of Willson Contreras and Masataka Yoshiada, whose MLB career has been hampered by injuries and has a 88 wRC+ the last two seasons, Cole locked in.

Locking in

In fact, immediately after Contreras knocked in two runs off of Cole, he blew a 98 MPH fastball right by Jarren Duran and then caught Durbin looking. Cole then got a quick inning in the fourth. The fifth was a clean inning outside of a Ceddanne Rafaela single, and he was pulled in the sixth after a Durbin single. He did have a strikeout just before then, though.

In all, he looked like the Cole of old. It just came after allowing four earned runs, and now, after the loss, the Yankees are tied for first with the Rays in the AL East, after being up three games on them last week.

"The last three or four innings, I thought he really got aggressive," manager Aaron Boone said, according to MLB.com's Bryan Hoch. "It was a little bit like, 'Let's just let it rip and get after it.' I thought he finished really well, but obviously he made some mistakes early."

New York Yankees pitcher Gerrit Cole (45) pitches during the first inning against the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park. | Bob DeChiara-Imagn Images

Cole said the secret to his success was being more aggressive. Hence, the 98 MPH Duran strikeout right after Contreras clobbered him.

"I just tried to free myself up, to be honest," Cole said. "The command just sometimes isn't there, so I tried to be more aggressive and not care as much about where the pitch is going."

Something not so promising

Of course, there was one downside to that run toward the end of his start. When the Sox did make contact, it was still loud.

Seven of the eight balls they put in play at that point were over 95 MPH. The last four were around 98. It still wasn't perfect, even if the results were there.