New York Yankees pitcher Gerrit Cole pulled a rather stunning move on Saturday that quickly backfired on him.
Throughout Cole’s career, Red Sox third baseman Rafael Devers has owned the pitcher. Devers came into Saturday’s game having gone 13-for-39 lifetime against Cole, with eight of those hits being home runs. Cole was not in the mood for that to happen to him again on Saturday.
Cole hit Devers with a pitch during the first plate appearance of Saturday’s game. In the second, Cole himself threw up four fingers on the mound, as he opted to intentionally walk Devers with one out and nobody on base.
Cole just intentionally walked Devers with 1 out and no one on base pic.twitter.com/yfZDPFYl6b
— Talkin' Yanks (@TalkinYanks) September 14, 2024
The decision did not appear to come from the Yankee dugout, either. Cole himself threw up the four fingers, and even enthusiastically gestured to Devers to head to first base.
This was definitely one of the moves of all time for sure pic.twitter.com/5WjGM2n6bC
— Talkin' Yanks (@TalkinYanks) September 14, 2024
Whatever the case, it did not work. Devers stole second base during the next plate appearance, which turned out to be a walk for Tyler O’Neill. The next Red Sox hitter, Masataka Yoshida, hit a ground-rule double that scored Devers and tied the game. O’Neill and Yoshida went on to score when the next batter, Wilyer Abreu, singled to right.
Would the inning have gone the same way had Cole simply pitched to Devers? We have no way of knowing, but the Red Sox did not have a baserunner when Devers was put on. Perhaps Cole could have found a way to get him out, at which point the Red Sox would have had two outs and nobody on, making an uprising unlikely. Even a solo home run would have done nothing more than tie the game at that point.
Whether the walk had anything to do with it or not, Cole did not recover after that. He allowed four more runs in the fifth inning and was pulled after allowing seven runs on five hits in just 4.1 innings.
The Yankees have seen other teams intentionally walk Aaron Judge in some odd spots recently. Perhaps that is justifiable, but Cole is the ace of the Yankees’ staff, and this felt like arguably his biggest rival beating him mentally.
