New York Yankees’ Gerrit Cole made his feelings known about this past postseason’s pitiful blowout defeat to the Houston Astros.
Losing in a playoff game is always painful, losing to a hated rival makes it that much worse, but losing in the playoffs to a hated rival you used to play for? That just about takes the cake.
New York Yankees ace Gerrit Cole addressed the Houston Astros’ 2022 sweep in which the Astros ended the Yankees’ season in the ALCS for the third time in six years. In an interview with reporters at Spring Training, Cole could have used any number of analogies to describe the bitter and humiliating defeat, but he went with something off the beaten path.
Cole said it doesn’t feel good to “get waxed” whether at a salon or on the baseball field, immediately eliciting Steve Carrell’s iconic yelping scenes from The 40-year-old Virgin:
Yankees pitcher Gerrit Cole still feels the stinging pain of Astros’ 2022 sweep
In one of baseball’s fiercest rivalries, Houston swept New York on its way to its fourth World Series appearance in the last six years. Per Cole’s words, the Yankees really did get waxed up and down and all around: Astros pitchers notched 50 strikeouts across four games, including a 5-0 defeat in Game 3 in the Bronx, and in Game 4 the Yankees blew an early three-run lead to hand Houston the series on a silver platter.
Cole spent the last three seasons in New York, but his best years of his career so far were when he played in Houston, leading the AL with a 2.50 ERA and recording an astonishing 326 strikeouts.
Since 2017, no pitcher has more starts, innings, or strikeouts than Cole, and New York will need more of Cole’s perennial durability to get the team far next season.
Should the Yankees and Astros meet again in the 2023 ALCS, Cole will hopefully get another shot at revenge and come away with the euphoric feeling of victory rather than the searing pain of body hair removal.