My initial thought when Giancarlo Stanton made contact with a first-inning pitch from Max Scherzer, which resulted in a two-run home run and 2-0 Yankees lead: Game over. Sure, it might have been a bit premature to think the Yankees had already clinched a victory in the first few minutes of the first inning of the first game of the season against the defending champion Nationals with the Nationals having yet to bat, but it really wasn’t. Not when you know the Yankees have Gerrit Cole pitching. Thursday night’s season-opening, rain-shortened 4-1 win for the Yankees felt even easier than their 2019 Opening Day win over the eventual 108-loss Orioles felt, and it was all because of the combination of scoring first and having Cole on the mound.

Michael Kay frequently mentions the old adage that a starting pitching will have great stuff in one-third of their starts, bad stuff in one-third of their starts and will have average stuff with the need to grind through the other one-third of their starts. I don’t know that Cole ever truly has “bad” stuff, and the adage clearly didn’t apply to him in 2019 with Houston when he finished the season 16-0, but on Thursday night, Cole was teetering on the border of having bad stuff and needing to grind though the start, and somehow he finished the game by allowing one hit and one earned run over five innings.

For as weird as it was to see Cole wearing the Yankees’ road gray uniform, it was even weirder to see him unable to throw strikes. Cole was missing with every pitch early on, going to a 3-1 count against the Nationals’ leadoff hitter Trea Turner before Turner helped him out by swinging at what would have been ball 4. Cole then fell behind Adam Eaton 2-0, and after evening up the count, Eaton was able to barely stay alive by just making contact on a third straight foul ball. The seventh pitch of the at-bat ended up in the seats for a home run.

For a brief moment, I had flashbacks of CC Sabathia losing in Baltimore on Opening Day 2009 in his Yankees debut before remembering Anthony Rendon is no longer a National, Juan Soto is currently out and Starlin Castro would be batting third in the game. Even though Cole would throw a first-pitch ball to three of the four hitters in the first inning (Castro, like always, swung at the first pitch of his at-bat), he was able to get through the inning and the top of the Nationals lineup (though their “top” was exactly a top) with just the one mistake to Eaton.

In the second, Cole hit Eric Thames with a slider, but after that hit-by-pitch, Cole only allowed one baserunner over the game’s final four innings (a fifth-inning Asdrubal Cabrera walk). Cole never really looked like himself or like the pitcher who became the best pitcher in the world with the Nationals. (Sorry, Mets fans.)  Cole’s final line: 5 IP, 1 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 5 K, 1 HR. That very well could be the worst Cole looks all season and he still managed to allow one hit and one earned run over five innings.

It feels good to once again have a pitcher who, when given any sort of lead, has essentially won the game before the game has ended. The Yankees haven’t had that in more than two years when Luis Severino was the best pitcher in the league for the first half of 2018, and before Severino, the Yankees hadn’t had that since the first four seasons of Sabathia’s Yankees career. But for as good as Severino was that season and has been at times and for as great as Sabathia was from 2009-2012, it feels different with Cole. While, the other two felt like sure-thing wins every fifth day, Cole feels like an automatic win every fifth day, with the game being played out as a formality.

The early lead Cole was given was increased by an Aaron Judge RBI double and a Stanton RBI single. I know there’s a lot being made about Stanton being slimmer in an attempt to stay healthy and increase production, and it showed in the first game of the season, even if it’s the smallest of sample sizes. I want the weight loss and physique adjustment by Stanton to be real and I want him to be the player the Yankees thought they were being handed by the Marlins before 2018, but I was in Toronto on Opening Day 2018 and saw him hit two majestic home runs and got lost in the idea of him being a perennial MVP presence in the middle of the order for the Yankees. I won’t let myself fall for that again, especially given everything that happened with him last season. For now, I’m cautiously optimistic the real Stanton could be on the 2020 Yankees.

The Yankees started the season with a win, Cole dominated with nowhere close to his best stuff, not only did Stanton play, but he provided power and clutch hitting, and even Tyler Wade looked like a major leaguer.

On Thursday night, the Yankees won a game in July, and for the first time in a long time, life felt somewhat normal.

***

My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is now available as an ebook!

No one expected the 2016 Yankees to be any good. And they weren’t. 

They got off to a 9-17 start, and it was obvious they had to tear apart the team and play prospects, and by this time every fan wanted them to do just that. Free agency had been the Yankees’ strategy since the early 2000s and a way for the team to plug holes on their sinking ship. It worked at times as they were able to tread water, have winning seasons and reach the playoffs, but over the previous 15 years, they had won one championship. Eventually you need to start over. Eventually you need a new boat. The game had changed too much and the Yankees needed a new boat and Yankees fans wanted a new boat.

At the end of play on July 6, 2016, the Yankees were 41-43 and it looked like they would certainly be sellers at the deadline in three weeks, but ownership wasn’t on board. The Yankees then went on an 11-5 run through July 26, and were now in striking distance of a wild-card spot — only four games back — and ownership hadn’t budged on selling and giving up on the season for future seasons.

The Yankees then lost their next four games, one in Houston and a three-game sweep in Tampa Bay. It was the best thing to happen to the organization since the Astros, Indians, Expos, Orioles and Reds passed on Derek Jeter in the 1992 draft, allowing the Yankees to select him with the sixth-overall pick. The losing streak pushed the Yankees out of reasonable contention, ownership gave Brian Cashman the green light to trade his veteran assets and begin the transition into “rebuilding mode”.

Andrew Miller (Indians), Aroldis Chapman (Cubs), Carlos Beltran (Rangers) and Ivan Nova (Pirates) were all traded, and Alex Rodriguez and Mark Teixeira announced their retirements. Gary Sanchez and Aaron Judge were called up to become everyday players, and in the process, Brian McCann was relegated to backup duty, which would lead to his offseason trade to the Astros. The Yankees had finally decided to show off the depth in their farm system, and thanks to that four-game losing streak at the end of July, the depth only got deeper with the top prospects they received in return.

The 2017 Yankees weren’t supposed to be good either, picked by many to finish near or at the bottom of the AL East in what was certainly going to be a rebuilding season. But there ended up being no “rebuilding”. The Yankees seemingly hit on every prospect who reached the majors and the team went from preseason dud to postseason bound, winning 91 games and putting up a plus-198 run differential.

The 2017 Yankees overcame a 3-0 first-inning deficit in the wild-card game. They overcame an 0-2 series hole to the 102-win Indians to advance to the ALCS. They overcame another 0-2 series hole to the Astros to bring a 3-2 series lead to Houston for Games 6 and 7. Ultimately, they came one win shy of reaching the World Series for the first time in eight years.

For 2018, the Yankees essentially replaced Chase Headley, Starlin Castro and Jacoby Ellsbury with Giancarlo Stanton (the reigning NL MVP), Miguel Andujar, Gleyber Torres and the Aaron Hicks who was drafted in the first round. But once again, they came up short in the postseason.

The 2017 postseason loss wasn’t crushing. Rather it was an exhilarating ride, being back at a raucous Stadium seemingly every night in October and watching a young, homegrown core get within a game of the World Series. The 2018 postseason loss, on the other hand, was crushing. After once again winning the wild-card game, and taking a game in Boston, the Yankees became the favorite in what had become a best-of-3 with two games at the Stadium where they didn’t lose. Not only did they lose both, they were embarrassed in every facet of the game, especially managing, and their rival celebrated on their field en route to a championship season.

Because of the way the season ended and the team it ended against, 2018 is viewed as a disaster, and rightfully so. But if you go back to 2016, 2017 and 2018 were never supposed to be about the Yankees. They were supposed to be about the Indians and Astros and Red Sox and Cubs and Dodgers, and they were. The timeline Yankees fans were given and expected prior to Opening Day 2016 was always 2019, these Yankees just happened to arrive early. The 2017 and 2018 Yankees gave us two unexpected years of championship contention even if it didn’t end with a championship.

Going back three years, 2019 was always circled as the first season the Yankees would truly contend for a championship, and they did. But in what has become a decade-long trend, the team fell short with inconsistent starting pitching in October coupled with an inability to get a timely hit. Two years after losing to the Astros in the ALCS in seven games, the Yankees lost to them again, this time in six games, losing four of the final five games of the series for the franchise’s fourth ALCS over the last 10 years. Ultimately, the first season of the Yankees’ championship window came and went without a championship.

This season was to be the Yankees’ best chance at ending their championship drought, but things started to unravel in spring training with Luis Severino going down for the season, James Paxton needing a back procedure, and the entire starting outfield of Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton and Aaron Hicks expected to miss as much as the first half of the season. The shutdown in mid-March allowed for Paxton, Judge, Stanton and Hicks to heal, but it turned a 162-game season in which the Yankees’ depth would separate them from the rest of the division and likely league into a 60-game season in which any team can put together a two-month run. The Yankees might still be the odds-on favorite for 2020, but the odds have declined with the condensed schedule and the uncertainty of what this season will hold.

60 games or 162 games, the 2020 is still a real season and it still counts and the players, coaching staff and front office should be held accountable. The World Series champion will be the World Series champion with no asterisk and no “but …” for them in the history books. It’s still a season of the Yankees’ current window of opportunity that they won’t get back.

The grace period with these Yankees ended before last season. This season is the the second season of the window of opportunity for this core to win a championship or championships. There’s no more consolation prize for coming within a game of the World Series or winning 100 games and then getting blown out by your storied rival. There’s no more excuses and no more “Next year”. These Yankees were expected to truly contend in 2019 and it’s now 2020.

The championship grace period is over. It’s long over. This October will be 11 years since the Yankees last reached the World Series and last won it. Every season with this group which doesn’t end with a championship will be a missed opportunity and they have already missed one.

***

My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is now available as an ebook!