April Madness: Is Less Really More?

NEW YORK — Well, that was quite a baseball weekend in New York. It began with the Twins scoring nine runs in the first inning of Game 1. Then, throughout the weekend, well, there was an Aaron Judge homer, Giancarlo Stanton got hurt again,* Carlos Correa slugged through the boos, Byron Buxton looked absolutely helpless. There was a sticky-stuff squabble revolving around pitcher Domingo Germán (who, for five-plus innings, looked like Bob Gibson and Pedro Martinez rolled into one).

*Stanton’s latest hamstring injury led announcer John Sterling to say this on the broadcast, and I love this so much. Please try to hear it in John’s baritone voice: “Maybe his muscles are too taut, I don’t know, I’m not a doctor.”

And on Sunday, Gerrit Cole pitched the second shutout of the season, a 10-strikeout, 2-hit masterpiece that reminded everybody that, yeah, he might be the best pitcher in the world. It is actually quite extraordinary how much Cole gets overlooked, and I say that as someone who does quite a bit of the overlooking.

He obviously came to the Yankees with so much hype — highest annual salary in baseball history when he signed and all that — and he has been pretty great since he got to New York (he did finish second in the Cy Young voting in 2021 and he did lead the league in strikeouts last year) but he gave up a bunch of homers and had a couple of slumps and it has somehow felt less exciting than what Corbin Burnes was doing or Jacob deGrom or Justin Verlander.

This year, he’s 4-0 with an 0.95 ERA and he hasn’t allowed a homer all season.

There are a couple of other things to say about Cole’s performance on Sunday and they directly relate to time of game.