SI:AM | It’s Gerrit Cole’s Turn to Be a Postseason Hero

The Yankees’ season is in the hands of their ace.

Cole will need to come through if the Yankees want to stay alive and send the World Series back to Los Angeles. / Kiyoshi Mio-Imagn Images

Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. I still don’t think the Yankees are going to pull off the comeback, but at least the World Series won’t be a sweep. That’s always an anticlimactic way to end the season. 

In today’s SI:AM: 

👏 Anthony Volpe’s dream night
🔥 Luke Weaver does it again
🏈 Colts’ tough QB decision

Can he get it done?

Game 4 of the World Series on Tuesday night was all about Anthony Volpe. The New York Yankees shortstop, who grew up in the Tri-State area idolizing Derek Jeter, gave his team a 5–2 lead in the third inning with a dramatic grand slam that allowed the Yankees to live to see another day. 

Volpe, a light-hitting, glove-first shortstop batting near the bottom of the order, was an unexpected hero. But if the Yankees are going to force a Game 6 and send the series back to Los Angeles, it’s no secret who the key will have to be. 

Gerrit Cole will start Game 5 on Wednesday night for New York, while the Los Angeles Dodgers will send trade deadline acquisition Jack Flaherty to the mound. Cole has been worth every penny of the nine-year, $324 million contract the Yankees signed him to before the 2020 season. He’s one of just five MLB pitchers with at least 900 strikeouts over the past five seasons and is the reigning AL Cy Young winner. 

But Cole has yet to have a signature postseason performance in pinstripes. His best playoff start for the Yankees came in an empty stadium in Cleveland in the 2020 wild card game when he struck out 13 in seven innings while allowing two runs in a 12–3 blowout victory. In the following year’s wild card game, he couldn’t even get out of the third inning as the Yankees were eliminated by the Boston Red Sox. In ’22, he picked up two big wins in the ALDS but allowed five runs in just over five innings in Game 3 of the ALCS en route to a series sweep at the hands of the Houston Astros (his former team). 

It goes without saying—given that this is the Yankees’ first World Series appearance in 15 years—that Cole has not pitched in a game this big since leaving the Astros. The odds of a comeback from down 3–0 are still infinitesimal, but it needs to start with Cole holding a potent Los Angeles offense in check and going deep enough into the game to provide a respite for a Yankees bullpen that has pitched 11 ⅓ innings over the past two nights. 

Cole is part of a dying breed. There aren’t many true ace pitchers these days—the kind of starter capable of going deep into a game with regularity. (He’s one of only five pitchers with multiple 200-inning seasons over the past five years.) And if New York is going to keep their hopes alive in Game 5, manager Aaron Boone may have to give Cole a longer leash than he was given in Game 1. 

Cole pitched well in the opening game of the series, allowing one run on four hits with four strikeouts over six innings of work, so it came as a bit of a surprise that Boone pulled Cole after he allowed a leadoff single to Teoscar Hernández to start the seventh. Cole, who’d thrown 88 pitches, had already pitched his way out of trouble against the most dangerous part of the Dodgers lineup in the previous inning, allowing a leadoff double to No. 9 hitter Tommy Edman before retiring Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman in order to preserve the Yankees’ 2–1 lead. 

Clay Holmes replaced Cole and hit the first batter he faced with a pitch. A sacrifice bunt moved the runners to second and third before Holmes retired Will Smith on an infield pop-up, at which point Boone brought in Tommy Kahnle to get the final out of the inning. 

Turning to two of New York’s top three bullpen arms that early ultimately came back to bite the Yankees in the 10-inning loss. If Cole is as sharp in Game 5 as he was Friday, will the Yankees trust him to pitch into the seventh inning? If he’s out of the game before then, it probably means the champagne is already on ice in the visiting clubhouse. 

Volpe became the first player to hit a go-ahead grand slam in the World Series with his team facing elimination in Game 4. / Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images

The best of Sports Illustrated

• I mentioned briefly how Anthony Volpe grew up a Yankees fan looking up to Derek Jeter. Stephanie Apstein has more on how Volpe lived out his childhood dream in Game 4.

• The other big factor in the Yankees’ win was closer Luke Weaver’s shutdown performance. As Tom Verducci writes, Weaver has quickly gone from appearing as though his career would soon be over to being as dominant a reliever as there is in baseball.

• Conor Orr argues that the Colts’ decision to bench Anthony Richardson is a result of the NFL’s relentless "win now" culture.

• Gilberto Manzano doesn’t think Indianapolis should trade Richardson before next week’s deadline, though.

• Albert Breer is impressed with how Russell Wilson has played thus far with the Steelers.

• Here are Michael Fabiano’s Week 9 fantasy football Start ’Em, Sit ’Em recommendations for quarterbacks, running backs, wide receivers and tight ends.

• Texans receiver Stefon Diggs will miss the rest of the season with a torn ACL.

• NBA veteran Rudy Gay, who hasn’t played since 2023, has formally announced his retirement.

The top five…

… things I saw last night: 

5. Freddie Freeman’s record-breaking sixth straight World Series game with a homer.
4. Luka Dončić’s clutch dagger from way downtown. 
3. The reception Wild goalie Marc-André Fleury got in his final game in Pittsburgh. 
2. Argentinian soccer club River Plate’s epic entrance for a Copa Libertadores match. 
1. The Serbian, French and Japanese calls of Anthony Volpe’s grand slam.