Gerrit Cole watched closely from the dugout on Friday night as the Los Angeles Dodgers pulverized his teammate, the right-hander Luis Severino. Cole was starting the middle game of the weekend series between the Yankees and the Dodgers, and what he saw of the lineup across the field, which has mashed more home runs than any other National League team, had him worried.
“There are outside circumstances that sometimes kind of elevate your preparation to a certain extent,” Cole said a night later, after buzzing through the same Dodgers. “A lot of heightened awareness. I mean, they beat Sevy up really good.