The American League Division Series will finally get underway Monday in Southern California. The AL East rival New York Yankees and Tampa Bay Rays will play the entire best-of-five series at Petco Park in San Diego. This is the first time the Yankees and Rays, who have a history of bad blood, have ever met in the postseason.
Rays manager Kevin Cash has announced Blake Snell will start Game 1 on Monday, and will be followed by Tyler Glasnow in Game 2 and Charlie Morton in Game 3. The Yankees will start Gerrit Cole in Game 1. The rest of their rotation is undecided but it is expected to be Masahiro Tanaka, Deivi Garcia, and J.A. Happ in some order in Games 2-4.
"Other than Cole in Game 1, we haven't made a decision," Yankees manager Aaron Boone told reporters, including George King of the New York Post, earlier this weekend. "Kind of decide when we want to go with Masa, Deivi, Happ, and (Jordan Montgomery). It's kind of setting it up to see how we want to roll it out."
For the Yankees, Game 1 is ultra-important and not just because the team that wins Game 1 of a best-of-five series has gone on to win the series approximately 70 percent of the time, historically. Game 1 is the only time they will have a starting pitching advantage -- I say that with all due to respect to Snell -- and it might be the only time they have Cole on the mound in the series period.
Cole has never made a start on short rest in his career and this year's postseason format affords teams no in-series off days in the LDS or LCS. Should this series go five games, Cole would have to pitch on short rest in Game 5, or the Yankees would have to give the ball to someone else. Neither scenario is ideal, but it is what it is. The Rays have to deal with the same schedule.
"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," Boone told reporters, including MLB.com's Bryan Hoch, when asked about Cole possibly pitching on short rest in Game 5. "First things first; I can't wait for Gerrit to get the ball in Game 1 and hopefully set the tone for the series. We'll see where we're at as the days unfold with him. The great thing about Gerrit is, he communicates really well about how he's doing and what he's doing."
With the Astros last year, Cole dominated the Rays in the ALDS, holding them to one run on nine baserunners in 15 2/3 innings. He struck out 25, including 15 in his Game 2 masterpiece. It is one of the most dominant postseason pitching performances in recent memory.
This year though, Cole was merely ordinary against Tampa during the regular season:
| Date | Result | IP | H | R | ER | BB | K | HR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Aug. 8 |
NYY 8, TB 4 (box score) |
4 2/3 |
6 |
3 |
3 |
1 |
10 |
1 |
|
Aug. 19 |
TB 4, NYY 2 (box score) |
6 2/3 |
6 |
2 |
2 |
1 |
10 |
2 |
|
Aug. 31 |
TB 5, NYY 3 (box score) |
5 |
8 |
4 |
4 |
4 |
7 |
2 |
|
16 1/3 |
20 |
9 |
9 |
6 |
27 |
5 |
Cole's strikeout rate was roughly the same as it was in the ALDS last year, but everything else was worse. More hits, more walks, more homers, more runs. The Rays really worked Cole too. He threw 16 1/3 innings in three regular season starts against Tampa this year compared to 15 2/3 innings in two ALDS starts against the team last year.
The subpar regular season numbers are surprising because, on paper, Cole matches up very well with the Rays. Tampa struck out in 26.9 percent of their plate appearances during the regular season -- it was 31.1 percent in September -- the second-highest rate in baseball behind the Tigers (27.3 percent). Cole is of course one of the game's preeminent strikeout pitchers.
Cole also boasts a high-octane fastball -- his 96.7 mph average fastball velocity ranked 13th among the 164 pitchers who threw at least 500 fastballs during the regular season -- and the Rays struggle against velocity. Here are their numbers against 95 mph or better fastballs:
- Batting average: .200 (28th in MLB; MLB average: .243)
- Slugging percentage: .341 (24th in MLB; MLB average: .404)
- Swing and miss rate: 29.8 percent (30th in MLB; MLB average: 24.1 percent)
Cole's three regular season starts against the Rays came with Gary Sanchez behind the plate. The Yankees paired Cole with backup catcher Kyle Higashioka late in the season -- Cole and Higashioka played in the same travel ball circuits while growing up in Southern California, so they are familiar with each other -- and the two instantly clicked.
| IP | ERA | K% | BB% | HR/9 | Opp. AVG/OBP/SLG | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Cole with Higashioka |
27 |
1.00 |
34.0% |
5.0% |
0.67 |
.147/.190/.242 |
|
Cole with Sanchez |
46 |
3.91 |
31.9% |
6.4% |
2.35 |
.224/.282/.494 |
It's a small sample and pitcher-catcher stats are deceiving -- it's impossible to separate how much the success (or failure) can be attributed to the pitcher or the catcher -- though the Yankees believe in the Cole-Higashioka pairing so much that they kept them together in Game 1 of the Wild Card Series last week. This is a thing now. Higashioka is Cole's personal catcher.
"Probably because we're both from Southern California," Cole jokingly told reporters, including Erik Boland of Newsday, about his success with Higashioka prior to the prior to the postseason. "I mean, we have a lot of the same interests. And Kyle's ability to communicate, be a really creative thinker, good pitch framer, good pitch caller. So we've worked out well together."
The Rays saw Cole plenty during the regular season and last postseason, though they have not seen the Cole-Higashioka pairing yet. And maybe that means nothing at all and they'll rough Cole up again like they did during the regular season. Tampa has a good offense that is greater than the sum of the parts. They didn't finish as the No. 1 seed in the league by accident.
Either way, Game 1 might be the only time the Yankees get to send Cole to the mound in the ALDS, and it's really hard to see them winning the series after losing a Cole start. It's not a literal must-win, but from a "we need to do this to have the best chance to win the series" perspective, Game 1 is damn close to a must-win for Cole and the Yankees.
"If you're taking the ball early, the object is to set the tone for the pitching staff and the team," Cole told reporters, including MLB.com's Bryan Hoch, prior to the Wild Card Series. "I've been practicing that this year, and I'll just keep trying to get better at it."
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Yankees vs. Rays: Gerrit Cole dominated Tampa in last year's ALDS; here's why 2020 might be different - CBS Sports
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