Gerrit Cole will embrace the ‘hard’ opportunity to duplicate his 2023 victory

TAMPA — Ron Guidry has walked in the shoes of Gerrit Cole, the reigning Cy Young Award winner.

So the former Yankees ace understands what the current Yankees ace is in for.

“Everybody’s gonna be shooting for you the next time out because you’re elevated, you’re the best,” Guidry said Friday at Steinbrenner Field, prior to Cole’s Grapefruit League debut against the Blue Jays.

“Now, every team wants to beat you.” Every hitter hopes to get a hit. Everyone just wants to beat you. It’s difficult to defeat those guys. …

When you had a fantastic year, that doesn’t mean you won’t have a good year the next year. It’s going to be difficult to recreate what You did it so someone else might have a wonderful year. However, it does not reduce who you are. You still have to go out every five days and do the work you’re expected to.

Guidry absorbed everyone’s best shot at him with ease after winning the Cy Young award the previous year.

His ERA increased by more than a full run, but it remained at 2.78, placing third in the 1979 Cy Young vote behind rotation mate Tommy John and Orioles’ Mike Flanagan.

The Yankees would welcome that situation if it meant Cole would receive more support from his rotation than last year, when it basically crumbled around him.

However, Guidry expects Cole to seize the opportunity of facing every team and hitter.

“He doesn’t shy away from anybody, which [is what] a No. 1 is supposed to do,” he said. “You only pitch better when you pitch against the best guys.”

Cole has broken a handful of Guidry’s Yankees marks in recent years, and the two have also built a solid relationship, which is reinforced every spring training with Guidry acting as a guest instructor.

Cole said it was “fitting” when he won his first career Cy Young Award in November, following Guidry as only the second Yankee to do it unanimously.

He thanked Guidry for assisting him in becoming “acclimated to the pressures, the role, the organization, and the style with which to pitch to maximize my contributions to the team.”

Guidry, for his part, enjoys Cole’s blend of tradition and innovation.

“He works hard to perfect what he does on the mound,” he said. “He’s taken all of the analytical information and combined it with a little bit of the classic pitching approach.

He realizes that analytical thinking entails a lot of things, but there is also the experience component. Because if you can’t do what you want on the mound with the baseball, analytics are nothing. I believe he understands this. I believe he demonstrated it to himself last year. Instead of focusing solely on analytics, it’s a little of both.