GERRIT COLD
Astros' co-ace falters on the biggest stage - and with plenty of free-agent $ at stake
HOUSTON — The spree for a three took a hit Tuesday night. Gerrit Cole’s World Series debut went about as well as Rudy Giuliani’s debut in the presidential race 11 years ago. Which is to say: Not awful by any stretch, yet folks expected far more.
Really, the right-hander’s subpar performance should serve as a friendly reminder to those salivating over his upcoming free agency: No matter how much a baseball player thrives, no matter how much you pay him to thrive, failure comes prevalently with the package more than in the other major sports. Even if his total financial commitment starts with a three (as in $300 million or more).
Cole and the Astros lost Game 1 to the indefatigable Nationals, 5-4, in a slow-burning nail-biter at Minute Maid Park to fall into a 1-0 hole in this Fall Classic. This marked the 29-year-old’s first loss in 26 starts and easily his worst start since that last defeat, as he gave up all five runs in seven innings.
“I didn’t have my A game tonight,” Cole said. “We worked well with what we had.”
“I think he’s been so good for so long that there builds this thought of invincibility and that it’s impossible to beat him,” Astros manager A.J. Hinch said. “So when it happens, it is a surprise to all of us, because we’ve watched for months this guy completely dominate the opposition.”
On May 22 at Minute Maid, Cole gave up six runs to the White Sox over five innings in a 9-4 defeat. In his final 22 starts of the regular season, he went 16-0 with a 1.78 ERA, striking out 226 and walking 31 over 146 innings. He followed that by winning his first three postseason starts while putting up a silly 0.40 ERA.
In Cole’s previous start, American League Championship Series Game 3 at Yankee Stadium, the Yankees threatened multiple times over seven innings without cashing in even once. That’s only one way in which Bob
Boone’s Nats (he works as a vice president and senior adviser to Washington general manager Mike Rizzo) differed from Aaron Boone’s Yankees. When Washington needed a huge hit in the fifth inning Tuesday, with the game tied at 2-2, it found not one, but two: A tiebreaking single by Adam Eaton and a two-run insurance double by Juan Soto. And before that, they socked a couple of home runs off Cole, the first by face of the franchise Ryan Zimmerman and the second by Soto.
The Astros expressed the most remorse over Zimmerman’s second-inning roundtripper on a misplaced fastball and the production from the bottom of Washington’s lineup (a Kurt Suzuki walk and a Victor Robles single through the second-base hole) that set the fifth-inning rally into motion and gave Nats starter Max Scherzer an impressive win as he grinded through five innings on 112 pitches.
Let’s not be silly and suggest that this outing will do any serious damage to Cole’s free agency this winter. It does, however, go down as a missed opportunity. A Cole gem on this stage could have elevated the heart rate of an intrigued owner like the Angels’ Arte Moreno.
Houston owner Jim Crane has hinted on record that a championship and its resulting revenues could encourage him to open up the purse strings and push the team’s payroll past the $208 million luxury-tax threshold for 2020.
As for the Yankees, well, they really shouldn’t need much more convincing at this point, although they appear to rank no higher than third on Cole’s preferred list.
Barring a Nats sweep, which would be shocking, Cole will get another chance to pitch in this Series, with Game 5 on Sunday night in Washington the natural slot. That’ll be another platform to continue his spree for a three, the record for a free-agent pitcher being David Price’s seven-year, $217 deal with the Red Sox.
“We’ll start our recovery process and get ready for next time,” Cole said.
October narratives and legends do count over the offseason. When you’re trying to make multiple kinds of history, you can never boost your legend enough.