A REAL GLOVE STORY
Cole says he’s ready to pitch to Sanchez, calls catcher ‘talented’
The Yankees are giving Gary Sanchez another chance and that means Gerrit Cole will too. The Yankees ace, whose preference for working with backup catcher Kyle Higashioka last season opened the door to Sanchez being benched, said he expects to work with both catchers in spring training.
“I would assume so. That’s how it worked the last time we were in spring in February,” Cole said on the YES Network Thursday night. “I think actually we got cut off, maybe one or two days after the first time I had worked with Kyle. So, we’re fortunate to have two tremendously talented catchers in that regard for someone to be able to fill in at any time and bring some of their talents or some of their unique attributes to elevate a team as a whole.”
In his first season with the Yankees, after signing a $324 million deal last winter, Cole went 7-3 with a 2.84 ERA in 12 starts of the coronavirus pandemic-shortened, 60-game season. His switch from working with Sanchez to only throwing to Higashioka became a big story in the season.
In eight games working with Sanchez, Cole’s ERA ballooned to 3.91. Cole allowed nine earned runs in 10 innings over his final two starts working with Sanchez and his frustration was visible.
Aaron Boone switched Cole to working with Higashioka, known as a better receiver and pitch framer, and in his final four starts of the regular season, Cole’s ERA shrunk to 1.00, allowing three earned runs over 27 innings pitched and a .147 batting average against.
Despite the fact that Sanchez had an absolute disaster of a 2020 season offensively, Brian Cashman said on Thursday that the 28-year-old goes into spring training as the “heir apparent.” The Yankees GM explained that the team felt the 60-game season was too small a sample size to dismiss Sanchez’s power and talent, so they agreed to tender him a contract in 2021.
While Cole clearly favored throwing to Higashioka, who he had known since they played on a Southern California scout team as teenagers, he is clearly going into 2021 trying to follow the team’s lead.
“To have a dual weapon threat or even if one guy’s your primary guy and someone else is supplementing, players like that make a big, a big difference towards the end of the season and in the most important games,” said Cole. “So, that’s a blessing to have two quality guys like that.”
In the end of last season, when it counted most, it came down to a lack of pitching depth and hitting — not catching — when Cole and the Yankees fell to the Rays in Game 5 of the American League Division Series.
So, Cole has his motivation for the winter.
“Ultimately we came up short of our goal. You know, as a group, as individuals, we have some more work to do, which is exciting,” Cole said. “From a personal standpoint, I guess I felt I was throwing the ball well at the end when it counted most. So I’m still gonna focus on making some improvements, but showing up at the end was big.”
In those three playoff starts, Cole allowed six earned runs in 18.1 innings pitched (2.95 ERA), all with Higashioka behind the plate.
He hopes to build off that for 2021 and has already started working.
“I’ve started a little bit earlier this year, because we just didn’t have quite as much (of a work) load on us,” Cole said. “I can’t remember the ending total but it’s probably close to about 50% or maybe under slightly under 40% of what we would normally throw. So I didn’t see any sense and didn’t feel any sense of needing to push it back. So with the weather out here (in California) and having not as many reps, I just took the opportunity to start playing a little catch a few weeks earlier than I typically would. It’s been nice and the ball feels really familiar at this point so that’s that’s a good sign.”