Yankees Notes: Clubhouse Reaction to ALDS Game 4 Pitching Dominance

KANSAS CITY, MO. — The New York Yankees discovered the secret to combatting the time off as the American League’s top seed: dominant pitching when the game (and series) is on the line.

For the second consecutive night, it was the Yankees bullpen that closed the door on the Kansas City Royals, with New York pitching allowing six hits and one run in a 3-1 victory in Game 4 of the American League Division Series.

With the win, New York moves on to the American League Championship Series, beginning Monday night in the Bronx.

Heading into this season, teams with a bye had lost five of the eight Division Series matchups over the last two years (and the second-seeded Philadelphia Phillies were ousted this year by the New York Mets). The Yankees, however, flexed their collective muscle on the mound to make sure they would not fall into the bye week trap.

Gerrit Cole threw 7.0 innings and allowed just one run, coming when the Royals pieced together a two-out rally after the benches and bullpens briefly cleared following words being exchanged between Kansas City’s Maikel Garcia and New York’s Jazz Chisholm Jr.

Once order was restored, Bobby Witt Jr. laced a single and Vinnie Pasquantino celebrated his birthday with an RBI double, pulling the Royals within two runs.

From there, however, New York’s pitching was simply too good.

New York’s bullpen entered Thursday night having held the Royals to a .167/.231/.167 slash line, with Kansas City batters going 8-for-48 against Yankee relievers. That dominance continued in Game 4, with Clay Holmes and Luke Weaver retiring all six Royals they faced. Three of those outs came via the strikeout.

Simply put, it has been a big step up from some moments late in the season when Yankees fans were wondering exactly how the late innings might look and if New York could hold a lead late in the game.

“That’s what we have. We have one of the best bullpens in the league,” Yankees slugger Juan Soto said. “They’ve been showing it all year long. Everybody is going to have their ups and downs, but this bullpen has been really consistent all year long.”

The night, however, belonged to Cole, who retired 15 of the first 17 batters he faced through the fifth inning. Outside of a leadoff single in the third by Tommy Pham and another single by Pham with two outs in the fifth, Cole did not allow a baserunner during that stretch.

“I thought Gerrit was great,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “Really efficient again. I thought right from the jump, his fastball was really good, and he had the command of it, and then he was able to mix other things off of that.”

Boone was prophetic about Cole’s outing during Wednesday’s media availability, predicting the veteran right-hander would bounce back from a Game 1 performance where he allowed seven hits and three earned runs (four total) in 5.0 innings.

“He’s one of the game’s great pitchers, obviously, and I feel like has thrown the ball really well here now for the last couple months,” Boone said. “They had a little bit of success against him in his last start. I’ve seen that over the years where he has that bump in the road and, by and large, he usually answers with a really good one.”

He did exactly that on Thursday, choking the life out of a season for the Royals that saw the franchise become just the third team in MLB history to make the postseason following a 100-loss season.

After the game, Cole was finally able to relax and celebrate, knowing the Yankees had made it back to the ALCS after missing the postseason entirely in 2023.

“Had a couple of IPAs with the boys, sprayed some champagne. This is the greatest,” Cole said.

Manager Aaron Boone agreed on a night when his team could take a collective breath and enjoy the moment.

“Certainly this hopefully is not the end of the road for us, and we expect more,” Boone said. “But you’ve got to savor these times, too, because to get down to the final four here and I feel like be in good shape from a team standpoint. I feel like we’re playing well. I feel like we’re pretty well-rounded. We’re not perfect by any means, but I’ll take our chances.”