AL CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES: GUARDIANS VS YANKEES

October 15, 2024

Gerrit Cole

Yankee Stadium

New York Yankees

Postgame 2 Press Conference

Yankees - 6, Guardians - 3

Q. How would you sum up your performance tonight?

GERRIT COLE: It was all right. Bend, don't break. Clay picked us up. That was huge.

Q. It seemed like you made fairly quick work through the first three innings, and then that fourth inning and a little bit in the fifth obviously things went the other direction. Bend, don't break, like you mentioned. What was different about the stuff?

GERRIT COLE: I lost a little bit of the zone, a few too many walks again. But I think they threw a lot of quality at-bats together, and they strung them together, and they obviously -- they won some of those long at-bats, and they ended up putting enough pressure on us that it didn't allow us to continue to cruise and keep going deep.

It's like kind of credit to them.

Q. Gerrit, I know it's always nice to get the early lead, but is it particularly nice in a postseason game?

GERRIT COLE: Well, of course. The lead is always helpful as a starting pitcher to be able to attack the strike zone and stay on the offensive.

Q. It seems like every night when Aaron Boone comes in here, we ask him about the job that the bullpen has done once again. I wanted to ask you about Austin Wells in regard to the bullpen. Like just how hard is it for a rookie catcher to be out there handling different pitchers night in and night out and getting these kinds of results?

GERRIT COLE: Yeah, Austin is obviously learning on the fly, this being his first experience in the postseason. He's doing a wonderful job. I think his continuity from game to game and then from pitcher to pitcher within the game, his communication is high, and he's got a game plan of how he wants to navigate throughout the game based on the weapons that different guys have.

So I think it comes down to his preparation and his great instincts.

Q. Congratulations on the win. Going forward, you have three games going in Cleveland. What's you guys' regimen physically and mentally going through the next three games in Cleveland?

GERRIT COLE: The objective is to take it one day at a time. Tomorrow is a recovery day with a light workout. Get in and get some good sleep. Then again, for the first game in Cleveland, that's the most important game on our schedule right now.

So we'll be looking to stay on the attack from pitch one in that regard.

Q. When you gave up a couple of the soft singles and then went into the stretch and started to fall behind, is it just having the runner on draining and starting to lose the rhythm there?

GERRIT COLE: I think that's a relatively fair assessment. I alluded to that a little bit earlier in the sense that some of the at-bats were just quality at-bats that they just continue to win.

Just got to do better. Got to do better.