Yankees: Gerrit Cole’s NSFW Blue Jays reaction and boos sum up Sunday

The New York Yankees sent Gerrit Cole to the mound on Sunday in a rubber game against a Cleveland team that cannot hit. They faced a starter with an ERA in the 6.00s in Eli Morgan.

Somehow, the game turned into a more disastrous laugher than Saturday’s, an 11-3 utter failure that spun out after Gary Sanchez dropped a foul pop in the fifth and chaos ensued.

Cole’s start was massively important, especially with the Red Sox facing their third consecutive O’s starter with an ERA above 6.50 (cool) and the Jays getting yet another tomato can in the Minnesota Twins.

Unfortunately, disaster struck early and often.

A clearly-hobbled Cole wasn’t all there, and the Indians danced around the bases in the first and third, extending the score to 5-0 in a blink.

And when pitching coach Matt Blake called a mound visit early to talk some sense into his righty, the ace caught wind of Toronto and Boston’s early-game blowouts. According to a field mic, he was … unhappy.

https://twitter.com/Sportsnet/status/1439670810357248000?s=20

Yankees ace Gerrit Cole was all of us reading the Blue Jays score.

It just … never gets better, does it? Toronto and Boston have clearly advantageous schedules down the stretch (did you see those starting pitchers in the Sox-Orioles series?), and the Yankees have blown their entire Wild Card lead in under two weeks, forcing them to execute to perfection over the season’s final stretch.

Not gonna happen. And it’s OK to scream about it.

What doesn’t feel right, though, is booing Cole, and the Yankee Stadium crowd unleashed on him after a brutal, seven-run outing (though he nearly gutted through six innings) on Sunday.

John Sterling admonished them, and we have to endorse his viewpoint.

Now, I think anyone who has a sanctimonious booing take is being a little too precious. To this day, I can’t understand the idea that Yankee fans aren’t allowed to be angry. A no-show in two crucial home games against a below-.500 team is worthy of praise? You’re supposed to sit on your hands when highly-paid superstars go down 1-2-3 inning after inning, flailing at breaking balls in the dirt? Please.

But … all that being said … a tough outing on Sunday is no reason to boo Gerrit Cole, who’s been one of the few Yankees who’s lived up to his billing in 2021, and is clearly gutting it out right now with a tender hamstring, even if he doesn’t want to say it out loud. It’s stunning that we’ve now welcomed Cole to the complete collapse, but please don’t unleash the boo birds on a man who’s part of the solution if this team has a chance of rebounding next year.

Clearly, he cares.

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