This afternoon the New York Yankees and ace Gerrit Cole go for what may be their most important game this season. A sweep of the Tampa Bay Rays. The Yankees have had big problems this season winning against the Red Sox and the Tampa Bay Rays. However, in the past two nights, the Yankees have taken the first two games of the series and have a chance for the sweep today and a possible turnaround to their season.
At 1:05 pm today, Gerrit Cole will face righty Luis Patino. Cole has been the Yankee’s most successful pitcher. He is 10-5 with an ERA of 2.74 and an incredible baseball-leading 166 strikeouts. He is coming off a loss to the Boston Red Sox. Back on July 10th, he pitched a complete-game shutout of the Houston Astros. Only one Ray has Cole’s number. Ji-Mon Choi has a .667 batting average against Cole in 12 at-bats.
Cole, 30, was born on September 8, 1990, in Newport Beach, California, to Mark and Karen Cole. Cole’s father was from New York and a Yankee fan. His father would tell him Lou Gehrig and other famous Yankees stories, and the young boy would quickly become a Yankee fanatic. His father certainly nurtured Cole’s interest in the Yankees by flying him across the country seven times to Yankee Stadium to see his idols, Mariano Rivera, Derek Jeter, and Andy Pettitte. Then, in 2001 his Dad would take the young Cole to the World Series in Arizona to see his favorite Yankees play. The eleven-year-old could be seen in the stands with a Yankee uniform and cap on while holding a sign saying “Yankee Fan Today, Tomorrow, Foreverâ€.
Through the Pittsburgh Pirate organization, Cole was traded to the Houston Astros, where he blossomed, becoming one of the best pitchers in the game. Cole was originally drafted by the Yankees in 2008 but decided to attend college at UCLA. That young boy with the sign in the stands in 2001 became a New York Yankee in December of 2019 when Hal Steinbrenner and company signed a $324 million contract with the then 29-year-old star pitcher.
In the shortened 2020 season, Cole was 7-3 with an ERA of 2.84. Yankee fans thought that although he was dominant, he wasn’t the same pitcher that went 20-5 for Houston the previous year. So far this year, He is 10-5 with an ERA of 2.74. With the poor hitting Yankees, Cole hasn’t gotten a lot of run support. If he did, his record would be better still. On July 10th Cole threw a career-high 129 pitches in a complete-game win over the Houston Astros, striking out 12. Cole is tied for fourth-most wins in all of baseball and with the third-lowest ERA.
Cole and his family moved to Greenwich, CT, a suburb of New York. The 6’4″ Cole is married to his wife Amy, who he met as a softball player at UCLA. His brother-in-law is Brandon Crawford of the San Francisco Giants. He and his wife love to cook and entertain family and friends. Cole is a healthy cook and a nutritional nut. Amy has a blog called “the Culinary Experience.†The two gave birth to a son last summer. Cole has a younger sister Erin.