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<\/p>\nBefore he makes his long-awaited return Friday, when his warmups are done and the ball has been whipped around the infield, New York Yankees ace Gerrit Cole will walk behind the mound, crouch with his elbows on his knees and stay there a while.<\/p>\n
These solitary moments, with a packed Yankee Stadium surrounding him, are as crucial to Cole as any fastball or bases-loaded escape.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re stepping into the ring,\u201d he recently explained to The Athletic. \u201cEverything up to that point, you\u2019ve controlled. Then, within like 15 seconds, the ball is going to leave your hand and you have zero control over what\u2019s going to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
There\u2019s no telling what will happen after Cole makes his first pitch of the season Friday night against the AL East-leading Tampa Bay Rays \u2014 undoubtedly one of the biggest games of the year for the Yankees, who hope he will continue on his Hall of Fame trajectory and help them end their 17-year World Series drought.<\/p>\n
But before Cole begins the second act of an illustrious career that was paused over the past 15 months as he recovered from Tommy John surgery, he will kneel and take a moment for himself.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n Gerrit Cole crouches behind the mound at Yankee Stadium in 2020. (Erick W. Rasco \/ Sports Illustrated via Getty Images)<\/p>\n
It\u2019s something he\u2019s done for years, though Friday will feel a little different, marking the merciful end of exile for the baseball-obsessed Cole. Though he often tinkers with his preparation, pitch grips, and delivery, which he changed to much fanfare during his rehab to include an old-timey over-the-head motion when he\u2019s in the windup, the crouch has long remained central to his routine.<\/p>\n
Sometimes, Cole crouches behind the mound to gather his thoughts. Sometimes, he\u2019ll do it to block out 50,000 screaming fans or to focus on his game plan against a tough leadoff hitter. Sometimes he keeps his eyes on the dirt, and sometimes he closes them. He also uses the break to steady his breathing.<\/p>\n
But every time, he knows that once he finally moves to the rubber and throws his first pitch, he\u2019ll spend the rest of his energy fighting to keep hold of what\u2019s most important to him while he\u2019s on the mound: Control.<\/p>\n
Control over his emotions. Control over the pace of the action. Control over anything and everything that he can possibly affect in a game steeped in volatility.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m just preparing for that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Cole, 35, learned the importance of self-control on the mound when he was an 18-year-old freshman at UCLA. That\u2019s when he met the late Dr. Ken Ravizza, a pioneer in sports psychology who co-authored with Tom Hanson the popular book \u201cHeads-Up Baseball,\u201d which essentially teaches baseball players to not beat themselves.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou must be in control of yourself before you can control your performance,\u201d the book reads. \u201cPeak performance isn\u2019t about being perfect, it\u2019s about compensating and adjusting.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even at that young age, Cole, with his big frame and smooth mechanics, had the look of someone who would accomplish so much in this game \u2014 and he has, including a 153-80 record, two ERA titles, a Cy Young Award in 2023 and five other top-five finishes, among other accolades.<\/p>\n
But Cole needed work on the mental side, UCLA head coach John Savage said this week in a phone interview.<\/p>\n
\u201cPhysically,\u201d Savage said, \u201che was on the path to stardom. I think what he really needed was the emotional part of things and the mental part of things. That was a big part of his development \u2014 the mental game, game management. How to deal with things throughout the week and throughout the games.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\n Gerrit Cole has been focusing on controlling what he can control on the mound since his days at UCLA. (Jayne Kamin-Oncea \/ Imagn Images)<\/p>\n
It\u2019s something Cole still has battled in his six years with the Yankees since signing a nine-year, $324 million contract\u00a0\u2014 then a record for a pitcher. Often, his body language immediately conveys how he\u2019s feeling, whether he disagrees with an umpire or if he\u2019s upset with himself over a bad pitch.<\/p>\n
But Cole knows the more he controls himself, the more he\u2019ll control the outcome of his starts. So when the intensity ratchets up, he will find the familiar on the mound \u2014 another tip from Ravizza. He\u2019ll rub the baseball a certain way. He\u2019ll clean his cleats on the spikes behind the mound, and he\u2019ll try to focus on the sound his cleats make while he does it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are different things you can do in any competition, and most elite athletes will tell you the same thing,\u201d Cole said, \u201cwhether you activate your vision or your hearing \u2014 some sort of sense, whatever it may be, to draw you back to your processes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt never gets old,\u201d Savage said. \u201cIt never runs out. It\u2019s never not applicable. It\u2019s very, very real, and I think Gerrit understands that, and he likes the feeling of the preparation part of things and certainly having control.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cole cited examples around the Yankees\u2019 clubhouse. He noted how Aaron Judge grabs dirt from the batter\u2019s box and tosses it, after disappointing himself on the previous pitch, as a way of throwing the moment away. He pointed out how Giancarlo Stanton digs his back foot into the box in the same place every time and never moves it.<\/p>\n
Longtime starting pitcher and National League Cy Young Award winner Orel Hershiser used to think in stages on the mound. Walking around the grass, Hershiser would contemplate the game situation. On the mound, he\u2019d think about the pitch he needed to throw. And when he reached the rubber, he would think about executing that pitch.<\/p>\n
Max Fried told The Athletic that he likes to reset before most innings by going to the back of the mound, putting his glove between his knees, tucking in his jersey and taking one last deep breath. Then, he uses his cleat to motion over the dirt near the rubber, \u201cwiping it clean.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a way to grab control back and get focus back to the things that you can control,\u201d Cole said.<\/p>\n
Maintaining control and focus are a priority for Cole elsewhere, too.<\/p>\n
Talk to him for a minute and you\u2019ll see he\u2019s as engaged as anyone you\u2019ve met. He keeps eye contact. He listens actively, giving\u00a0head nods and affirmations.<\/p>\n
Watch him play catch and you won\u2019t see a single wasted movement. He aims for his partner\u2019s target every time. He wears it on his face when he misses his mark, even from long distance.<\/p>\n
Last October, during a quiet morning after the Yankees were eliminated from the postseason, Cole trekked to the Bronx for a bullpen session. The problem: It started snowing. It didn\u2019t matter to Cole, who layered up and chucked fastballs through the snowflakes, the echo of catcher\u2019s mitt reverberating throughout an empty Yankee Stadium.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019re only trying to focus when s\u2014 is hitting the fan,\u201d he said, \u201cyou have nothing to anchor the fan to other than doing this s\u2014 (waves his hand flippantly) when s\u2014 is hitting the fan, and that\u2019s not really productive.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cole said a key to being able to get through difficult moments in baseball, or in life, is an ability to focus regardless of the situation \u2014 \u201cwhen things are going well\u201d or \u201cwhen things are going badly or when nobody\u2019s looking or when it seems monotonous.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat way there\u2019s a continuity in terms of all your work,\u201d he said, \u201cand it connects you back to that moment and it regulates you when the bases are loaded and you have to get out of the situation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cole is pining for the chance to put it all together again Friday night, his first time on a major-league mound in 569 days, since a disappointing Game 5 of the 2024 World Series.<\/p>\n
\u201cI missed it quite a bit,\u201d he said Tuesday. \u201cI\u2019m confident. I\u2019m optimistic, but I definitely know there\u2019s some work in front of us. It\u2019s just the right time to take the next step.\u201d<\/p>\n
But before Cole takes that step, he\u2019ll stride behind the mound and crouch once again, relishing those final, fleeting moments of control before the glorious fight to regain it begins anew.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Before he makes his long-awaited return Friday, when his warmups are done and the ball has been whipped…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":658284,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[363,369,99],"class_list":["post-658283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-mlb","tag-new-york-yankees","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=658283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658283\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/658284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=658283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=658283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=658283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}