Unearthed old column proves Pirates fans should've seen Gerrit Cole meltdown coming

The New York Yankees had an early 5-0 lead in Game 5 of the World Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers. Aaron Judge, Jazz Chisholm Jr. and Giancarlo Stanton had all homered, and Gerrit Cole was dealing on the mound.

Then, the fifth inning happened. After a series of inexplicable blunders by the Yankees, a 5-0 game was suddenly 5-5. Not a single one of the Dodgers' runs in the fifth inning was earned, but one costly miscue by Cole launched the beginning of the end of the Yankees' season.

Cole, the No. 1 overall pick by the Pittsburgh Pirates in the 2011 MLB Draft, failed to cover the bag after a Mookie Betts squibber. This allowed Betts to reach first base without a throw and the Dodgers to score their first run. Cole was clearly rattled, needing 38 pitches to get through the inning after getting through the first four with just 49.

The rest, as they say, is history. The Dodgers managed to score four more runs in the inning and ultimately went on to win the game – and the World Series title. Cole certainly wasn't the only one to blame – he finished with zero earned runs, after all – but he played a part in the Yankees' collapse. And perhaps we should have seen it coming.

Unearthed old column proves Pirates fans should've seen Gerrit Cole World Series meltdown coming

In the middle of the Yankees' fifth-inning implosion, MLB writer Travis Sawchik posted on X a clip from a column he had written more than 10 years earlier, when Cole was a prospect in the Pirates' system.

Sawchik had spoken with then-manager Dean Treanor, who coached Cole at Triple-A Indianapolis in 2013. Treanor offered some valuable insight into one of Cole's weaknesses, which may have been his undoing in Game 5.

"Part of the package of being a top-of-the-rotation guy is you have to stop (stuff) from happening," Treanor said of Cole in 2013. "With other guys, it becomes a three- or four-run inning. He has to make it a one-run inning. You'll see him get frustrated by things that are happening, whether it's hits that he's given up, runs he's given up. I think earlier in the year there was a tendency for things to snowball ... Now he understands it's up to him to minimize the damage."

There it is. Cole has a history of struggling to move on from mistakes – even mistakes that aren't his. That fifth inning was full of them; when things got hairy, he crumbled.

They say old habits die hard, but perhaps sometimes they don't die at all. They just come back to haunt us at the worst possible times – like Game 5 of the World Series.

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