Yankees Put Their Playoff Fortunes in Gerrit Cole's Hands After Gutty Game 4 Win

SAN DIEGO – So the New York Yankees live to fight another day, and what a fight it's going to be: Gerrit Cole, their $324 million man, gets the ball in a winner-take-all game with a trip to the American League Championship Series on the line.

Or, as slugging Yankees first baseman Luke Voit essentially guaranteed, "We're going to win it. Gerrit on the mound is the best situation for us. We're locked and loaded."

Yes, the Yankees bashed their way into Game 5 with a 5-1 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays in Game 4 of this division series, and what a night is in store on Friday.

Or, as Cole said to Aaron Boone upon walking into the manager's office before the Yankees had even forced Game 5 when their bus first arrived at Petco Park, "Give me the ball."

Give me the ball.

That there was even a question Cole would get the ball for Game 5 was almost laughable, except for this one tiny little nugget: Over 204 regular-season starts and 12 postseason starts in his eight-year career, Cole has never, ever started a game on fewer than four days' rest.

On Friday night, he'll be going on three days' rest for the first time in his career.

Gregory Bull/Associated Press

Over time, he said, he has spoken to some of the game's big arms about the dramatic, short-rest autumn start in a must-win game, guys like his old teammates in Houston, Justin Verlander, Zack Greinke and Dallas Keuchel. And what they've told him has only served to solidify his own thoughts.

"It's not something that's probably sustainable for a whole season, but the human body is capable of doing it," Cole said, speaking on video conference after home runs by Voit and Gleyber Torres put a big dent on the Rays in Game 4. "We saw the Brewers ride CC [Sabathia] hard on that majestical run [in 2008].

"When the lights turn on, you've got to do your job whether it's three, four, five, six or seven days."

Really, in baseball terms within the context of the weirdness of 2020, what could be more perfect than this coming full circle?

Baseball's best and richest pitcher is making his first postseason start on short rest, in the National League's Petco Park, on the opposite coast from Yankee Stadium, for a chance to meet his old team, the Houston Astros, in the ALCS, in San Diego, the city that also hosted the winter meetings last December where Yankees general manager Brian Cashman and Cole agreed to this nine-year deal in the first place.

Aside from the money, almost no part of that makes any sense...and yet in 2020, it somehow makes perfect sense.

A mere 10 months ago, Cashman walked into a restaurant across the street from the winter meetings hotel here for a late dinner and received a standing ovation from some of the patrons as word was breaking on the flat screens that the Yankees and Cole had reached a deal.

Roughly one mile down the street and yet almost in a different universe, Cole will start Game 5 while continuing to push toward his lifelong dream: leading the Yankees to a World Series title. In this case, their first since 2009.

"I'm excited to see him go pitch, there's no question," Boone said. "I know he's excited to get the ball with the opportunity to help us move on. To be able to hand the ball to probably the best pitcher in the game, there's some comfort in that."

Good thing, because there hasn't been much comfort in facing a deeply talented Rays team anytime else this season.

Even after failing to close out the Yankees in Game 4, the Rays have won 10 of 14 games against New York this year, regular season and postseason combined. Cole faced them three times in the regular season, going 0-1 with two no-decisions and a 4.95 ERA with 27 strikeouts in 16.1 innings.

In a 9-3 Game 1 rout Monday, Cole surrendered three runs over six innings with eight strikeouts and two walks. He threw 97 pitches.

Overall, the Rays have battled him far better than in 2019, and especially better than in last year's division series when Cole annihilated them, going 2-0 with an 0.57 ERA and striking out 25 of the 54 Rays batters he faced.

You bet the Rays who were there for that whiff-fest will feel they owe him.

"Who said it was going to be easy?" said Willy Adames, the Rays' irrepressible shortstop.

In fact, while everyone else zeroes in on his short rest, Cole figures his biggest challenge isn't counting the days.

"I mean, the Tampa Bay Rays," he said. "They're a good club. They've been playing really good baseball. They're going to put up a fight tomorrow, just like we will.

"We're going to have to be sharp."

Cole seems to sniff the autumn air in much the same way your dog knows when you're grilling a steak. During a career year last season, pitching for the Astros, he whipped these Yankees 4-1 in Game 3 of the ALCS in Yankee Stadium and laid a 7-1 handcuffing on the Washington Nationals in Game 5 of the World Series in a bounceback after losing Game 1.

Now, Cole is 5-0 with a 1.85 ERA over his past five starts—his final three regular-season starts, one playoff start against Cleveland and this week's division series outing against Tampa Bay. Over 34 innings, he's fanned 45 and surrendered just 22 hits.

"I'm excited about it," said Jordan Montgomery, whose four innings of one-run ball Thursday set up the Yankees' evening and allowed them to use Zack Britton and Aroldis Chapman in a short-enough burst that both will be available for Game 5. "We've got a guy on the mound. This is a good situation for us to be in. If we're going to have somebody out there, I want it to be him."

Rays manager Kevin Cash said he will give the ball to Tyler Glasnow for Game 5, and Glasnow will be going on just two days' rest.

"I'm sure they'll bring in [Blake] Snell, too," Voit said. "I mean, [Glasnow] has really good stuff, but we've seen him. We've got a good game plan against him and just got to get the runs early."

Of course, Tampa Bay also counters with one of the filthiest bullpens in the game, and Cash was able to avoid using key relievers Nick Anderson, Diego Castillo and Peter Fairbanks in Game 4 so that trio will be fresh for Game 5.

But the Yankees will put Cole up against anybody. This is why they signed him to the nine-year deal, why Cashman moved so aggressively to lure him away from the Astros, the Los Angeles Angels and others, going so far as to bring in former Yankee Andy Pettitte to help recruit him.

For win-or-go-home games on October nights such as this.

Nick Wass/Associated Press

"It's a special opportunity," Cole said. "You know, I think everybody's feeling like it's going to be a special game, a big game for us. It's not going to take one guy to win it. It's going to have to be a complete team game, much like most of our wins are.

"Anytime you're in the lineup in a do-or-die game, your teammates have faith in you, your manager has faith in you. And as a player, that's a really good feeling.

"You always want to be out there for the big moment. Either team would have liked to win the series in Game 4 before a Game 5. But hey, we're here, and it's part of the path of going forward."

Or, as Voit put it, "We're a bunch of caged animals. We want to do everything we can. There's a lot on this team. We knew it would be a crazy and suspenseful series, and we're up for the challenge."

Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report. Follow Scott on Twitter and talk baseball.