Are these the words of a man who can lead us to a World Series title?

Gerrit Cole's postgame statement yesterday:

“Some really nice pitches tonight, some really nice sequences.  But you know, in the end, I guess, when the biggest pitches mattered, we just kind of fizzled out, we weren’t able to make good enough pitches.  It’s a fickle game.  I mean, it can change really quickly, it’s a game of inches.  Wasn’t that long ago that where we had an inning that broke in our favor against the Mets.  Started with a, you know, started with a shift here then a botched whatever to third base and all of a sudden we scored four and came back and ended up winning the game, so we’ve been on the right side of it, tonight we were on the wrong side of it.”   

Uh-boy.  (Makes Lou Costello hand rubs all over his face.)

A conspicuous lack of "I's" no?

I hate to keep playing the age card here—all right, I love it, I admit, it's one of the few fun things about getting old—but I'm aged enough to have watched a few innings of Whitey Ford's last shutout as a Yankee.

For all the Yankees aces and stoppers I've seen since—Ford, Al Downing, Mel Stottlemyre, Catfish Hunter, Ron Guidry, Tommy John, Jimmy Key, David Cone, David Wells, Roger Clemens, Orlando Hernandez, Andy Pettitte, C.C. Sabathia, Masahiro Tanaka, and Luis Severino—I have never heard them say, after a bad start, "It's a fickle game," "baseball is a game of inches," or (my personal favorite) "Hey, the Mets blew a game last week!"

The only exception to this was Mike Mussina, who—after he retired—blamed the Yankees never winning a World Series during his time with the club on...wait for it!...Mariano Rivera.

I saw that coming, and made a bet of one Faicco's prosciutto sub that the Yanks would never win it all with Mussina as one of their top starters.  That was a bitter sub to swallow, but I did so with a certain relish (I can't remember which brand), because I had taken the measure of the Moose from the start.

But I digress.

Suffice it to say, that statement from Mr. Cole comes from the most passive point of view I think I've ever heard from a pitcher.  "We" fizzled out?   "We" didn't make enough good pitches?

Oh, son, it wasn't the whole infield out there helping you throw the ball.  (If so, you might not have given up a home run to a guy who literally had not had a hit all season.).  It's not "we" who are leading the AL in home runs allowed.

Sure, the back-up shortstop made an error.  Funny, nobody heard Thairo Estrada after the game saying how "we" botched that play and you know, 'if it can happen to the Mets it can happen to anyone!'

The proper response in a situation like this, Mr. Cole, is more along the lines of:

"Hey, I know we really needed a win today and I messed up.  It's my bad and nobody else's.  Lately, I've been doling out gopher balls like M & Ms, even to meat like D.J. Stewart.  It's got to stop and it's going to stop."

Well, let's not hold our breath waiting.

I'm not going to crack wise about his salary because thinking $36 million makes you a good pitcher is Steinbrenner Family Logic.  I thought it was a great idea to sign Cole, and I was very glad to see that the Yankees did, for whatever price.

But there's an element of character in playing this game that neither Brain nor all the statheads in the world want to acknowledge.  So far, this tin potsky of a pitcher hasn't shown a lick of it.

I can't wait until next year, when the fans are back and the boos start to roll.

Uh-boy!