Pinstripe Alley Podcast Ep. 122: The Gerrit Cole Show (feat. The Yankees)

The Yankees have now played over a week and a half of baseball games and all they can muster is hovering around the .500 plateau. For that, they must thank ace Gerrit Cole, who is the star of the team and also this week’s podcast.

We discussed how we’ve seen the three different kinds of primary Cole starts so far — tough-luck loss, overpowering win, and grind-it-out win — while also bringing up the value of his good rapport with backup catcher Kyle Higashioka. It’s clear that Higgy should receive the lion’s share of Cole starts over Gary Sánchez, but we still think it’s important for Sánchez to at least occasionally catch him.

As for the offense? The Higashioka homers were nice, as was the 10th-inning rally on Sunday, but it still has to do better. They were dominated by the Rays’ bullpen and have been hitting into far too many double plays. We’re not panicking about whether or not this offense is actually good because the talent is there, but it can easily improve. Minimizing Jay Bruce is part of that.

We also briefly touched on Tyler Wade and Domingo Germán’s demotions, the tone-deaf Mushnick comments on Sánchez using an interpreter, and Aaron Hicks taking a deserved mental health day in memory of Daunte Wright.

You can listen to the show on the web player below, or on any of your preferred podcast apps — to name a few, we’re on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, PlayerFM, and iHeartRadio. As a reminder, if you were already subscribed to former host Ryan Chichester’s “Bomber Brothers” feed, then you’re good!