The New York Yankees again traveled to Publix Field in Lakeland, Florida, to play the Detroit Tigers. The game featured Yankee ace Gerrit Cole facing the Tiger’s Michael Fulmer. It was another beautiful day for baseball. The game was played under partly sunny skies and a game-time temperature of 83 degrees. The game was not televised, except locally in Detroit.
Gerrit Cole stumbles again!
In an earlier article, I wrote about the best players and the most disappointing ones so far in this spring training. Cole was featured as one of the starts of the disappointing season.
We all know that Gerrit Cole is our New York Yankees ace, and we all expect a 20 game winning season. Short of that, we will be somewhat disappointed. As of his last start, Cole pitching over the qualifying 5 innings has the highest ERA of any starter (4.50). At least at the beginning of the season, one conversation with Cole is who he will be throwing to. In his first game, he struggled with Gary Sanchez catching him. In his second outing, he pitched much better when caught by Kyle Higashioka. It’s a small sample but worth noting.
Today against the Tigers, he was caught by Rob Brantly. He got out of the first inning unscathed. But in the second inning, he was nailed for two homers. Jacoby Jones and Renato Nunez scored long balls off the Yankee ace. He also walked one in the inning, which gave him 2 walks in his first 6 innings of the spring. At the top of the third inning, Cole only faced three hitters. Nevertheless, Cole giving up back-to-back home runs is concerning. Already with the highest ERA of the starting rotation, he today raised it to 5.14. At this point of the season, Gerrit Cole does not look like the ace he is; that place goes to Domingo German, who has an ERA of .000 in a full nine innings.
The New York Yankees are trying to expand innings for their starters in preparation for the regular season. In doing so, they brought Gerrit Cole out to start his fourth inning. Jonathan Schoop hit a hard double off Cole that dropped just short of Frazier. He struck out the next two hitters bringing his ERA back to 4.71. Although his performance was not horrible, it is not what the Yankees expect from their ace.