New York Yankees fans, many of which are still sheltered in their homes, last night got to see what the Yankees paid $324 million to get. In a somewhat shocking first look, Gerrit Cole gave up an opposite-field home run to Miguel Andujar. In the second inning, he allowed a walk to Estevan Florial, but then he kicked in and went a surprising five innings and 67 pitches while putting down the last 10 hitters he faced.
This had to be an outing that impressed New York Yankee Manager Aaron Boone. Cole showed Boone and Yankee fans that he is ready to come out hot when he faces the Washington National’s Max Scherzer on July 23, opening day in the Nation’s capital city.
Cole ended up allowing one run on one hit and two walks while striking out six. Cole had control of all four of his pitches. He highlighted his 97-mph fastball and filthy slider. Cole provided his own encouragement, but after the game talked about whether pitching in front of empty stands would be an issue.
“I don’t know. This is the first kind of real most game-like scenario I have been put in with it. It is certainly different. I didn’t have trouble focusing tonight. Try to get in my space and do what I do. I tried to find that middle ground between too high or too low,’’ Cole said. “It was one of those where I was trying to get up and make sure I was focused because you want to make it as much as businesslike as you can. It was nice to see and feel the competitiveness on the field. That is just a testament to the guys, everybody is bringing it.’’
On the other side of the New York Yankees scrimmage was highly respected prospect Michael King. King impressed in his own way by pitching two scoreless innings. King feels he can learn by watching the intensity in which Gerrit Cole pitches.
“He does not take a pitch off and I talked to him about his in-between start routine, the bullpens in between are max effort,’’ King said. “He doesn’t want to overdo it. He doesn’t want to throw 56-pitch bullpens, which I do because I like throwing as much as I can. He wants to be game-like every time he is on the mound. So when he is on the mound in his bullpen, 15-20 pitch bullpen, every single pitch was full intensity. In this intrasquad, the first one of spring training 2.0, he is mad at himself for missing pitches.’’
We’ve watched two intrasquad games now, last night’s effort was a little more game-like than the first game, that lacked an outfield and infield at times. It has given us a feel for what games in an empty park where you can hear the mice walking around will feel like. Assuming the coronavirus lets the baseball season start, that opening day is now just fifteen days away.