Nestor Cortes has the best wins above replacement (WAR) among Yankees pitchers this season with 3.4.
But Gerrit Cole, making $36 million a season, is the ace of the Yankees’ staff and thus will start Game 1 of the MLB playoffs for the club, manager Aaron Boone declared Tuesday on The Post’s “The Show” podcast with Joel Sherman and Jon Heyman.
“Yeah, Cole would be,” Boone said. “And we feel great about Nestor obviously too. And hopefully [Luis Severino] getting back here and getting a few starts under his belt here at the back end, put him in that mix too. We’ve got a couple weeks to go there and we’ve got to see how we get there and how we get in. Those things always affect how you line things up. But hopefully we’re in a position to line it up how we want.”
Cole, 32, has a 3.41 ERA with an MLB-best 236 strikeouts in 182 1/2 innings this season. His 30 starts were tied with eight other pitchers for most in baseball entering Tuesday’s games, and his 2.6 WAR is second among Yankees pitchers. He’s allowed an AL-high 29 home runs this year.
Cortes, who is pitching against the Pirates on Tuesday, began the day with a 2.70 ERA with 142 strikeouts in 140 innings.
The Yankees began Tuesday with a 5 1/2-game lead over the Blue Jays in the AL East, holding the No. 2 seed in the American league.
For more on Boone’s thoughts on Cole’s performance after the implementation of the new sticky-stuff rules and Aaron Judge’s home run chase, listen to “The Show” podcast above.