Gerrit Cole shows Yankees he can thrive while grinding: Sherman

In any other season, Gerrit Cole is the main story and two sidebars. What did you eat for breakfast, and how did you feed the Nationals their lunch? No detail would be too small. This is what it is like when you are the big new Yankee making his debut.

Whether your name is Clemens or Matsui, Giambi or A-Rod, Sabathia or Stanton, the treatment does not waver. The Yankees’ history is to import the biggest baseball stars then watch as the premieres are covered akin to the first moon landing — just more obsessively.

But this isn’t any season. Of course. Cole was making his debut on July 23 because the sports world stopped in March and only now is crawling back out, gingerly trying to navigate schedules amid a pandemic. MLB is first in North America.

So Cole was behind a global pandemic as a story. He also was not as relevant as the pregame gestures of protest against social injustice, which included the Nationals and Yankees jointly holding a 200-foot piece of black fabric then kneeling in unison for a minute before the first national anthem of this major league season.

This being 2020 Cole’s debut it was ended by a torrential downpour in the top of the sixth inning, because what we are going to do with sports this year is see if we can keep ramping up the ole degree of difficulty. The game was called at that juncture, and Cole would joke by phone with his wife, Amy, “I can’t believe I am going to get a complete game one-hitter in my debut.”

Yep, in this case five innings was a complete game and a 4-1 win, and Adam Eaton’s first-inning homer was the only hit managed by a Washington lineup down a few notches from the one Cole faced twice in the World Series last year.

Cole, a lifelong Yankees fan, had dreamed of this moment. But not like this. He noticed, “There was no buzz coming to the park. You are not hearing a full stadium. Then all of a sudden the switch is on. There is no build up, just dead silence.”

Cole had seen his teammates in the Yankees’ uniform before the game and, “It hit me, this is for real.” So even with the largest of games on his résumé, Cole grew over-amped in compensation. His adrenaline seized control of his body, and he lost precise command of his pitches.

That he didn’t lose hold of the game says something, yes, about Cole’s talent (he could still reach back for 99 mph when needed) and the defanged nature of the Nationals’ lineup, down Antony Rendon and Ryan Zimmerman already from last year’s champion, and then on the day of the opener losing their best hitter, Juan Soto, to the coronavirus.

But there also was something about guile and guts. Gary Sanchez said Cole has “it” and Aaron Boone admired the capacity to “grind it out.” Cole threw strike one to just 8 of 18 hitters — and hit one of those to whom he threw strike one. Eight of 18 Nationals got into hitter’s counts of 2-0, 2-1 or 3-1. Yet, they had just the Eaton hit, when Cole perhaps grew overly reliant on his fastball, throwing 14 straight to open the game.

The righty, though, never let an inning or his pitch count get away from him. In a much anticipated pitching matchup, Cole had the support, like in Houston, of a mighty lineup to counter Scherzer, who struck out 11 and in many ways was better than Cole even while surrendering four runs.

Giancarlo Stanton hit a 459-foot, two-run homer in the first and an RBI single in the fifth. Aaron Judge crashed hits in his first two at-bats, including an RBI double in the third. That hit scored Tyler Wade zooming from first. Boone decided to hold back DJ LeMahieu as just not ready after missing most of spring training 2.0 with the coronavirus. Wade started at second. He walked and scored flying around the bases in the third. And he had a bunt single to help the Yanks to their fifth-inning run.

Cole held the lead by striking out the final two batters he faced in the fifth, making it an official game. He wasn’t the big story of a normal year. But this is no normal year. Still, through the unique and the strange, Cole said, “I had a blast.”

Clearly, happiness on Day 1 for Cole was honoring the role as the big new Yankee.