The Yankees got Gerrit Cole for moments like this. They signed him before the 2020 season to a nine-year, $324 million contract — the biggest for a pitcher in MLB history at the time — to be their tone-setting ace, the big-game anchor to help end their championship drought. And while the Yankees lost Game 1 of the 2024 World Series in heart-breaking fashion, it was no fault of the right-hander. Cole held the superstar-laden Dodgers to one run over six-plus innings Friday night in Los Angeles, collecting a no-decision in the Yankees’ 6-3 loss in 10 innings. “I felt pretty good,” Cole said. “We executed a lot of good pitches.” Cole struck out four and did not issue a walk, limiting a loaded Los Angeles lineup led by former MVPs Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman to four hits. He deployed a four-seam fastball that averaged 96.7 mph and that he dialed up to 99 mph. And in one of the game’s biggest moments, Cole rose to the occasion. With the Yankees clinging to a 2-1 lead, Dodgers shortstop Tommy Edman led off the bottom of the sixth with a double. But in heroics fit for Hollywood, Cole got Ohtani to ground out weakly, Betts to ground out with the infield in to keep Edman at third, and Freeman to fly out to escape the jam. Four innings later, Freeman crushed a walk-off grand slam against Nestor Cortes, giving the Dodgers a 1-0 lead in the best-of-seven series. But Cole did his job. “It is tough,” Cole said. “We played a good ball game. Obviously, they did just enough to win the game, so we’ll regroup and get back after it tomorrow. It was a full-circle moment for Cole, a childhood Yankee fan who, at age 11, famously attended their Game 6 of the 2001 World Series in Phoenix with a sign reading “Yankee fan. Today. Tomorrow. Forever.” He grew up in Orange County, Calif., and was selected in the first round of the 2008 draft by the Yankees out of Lutheran High School, but he opted instead to attend UCLA, where he pitched his home games about 20 miles from Dodger Stadium. The Pirates drafted Cole with the first pick in the 2011 draft, and after five MLB seasons with Pittsburgh and two with Houston, Cole signed with the Yankees and brought his 2001 World Series sign to his introductory press conference. “I think the challenge in big games is to make them really no bigger than they really are,” Cole said before Game 1. “It’s the same game we’ve been playing all year. I feel like to a certain extent I really enjoy these moments. Just personally, I think that may be part of experiencing a lot of them along the way, but also just the excitement that comes with competing against the best.” Cole, 34, entered Friday’s start at Dodger Stadium with a 1-0 record and a 3.31 ERA through three starts this postseason. His seven-inning, one-run gem in the series-clinching ALDS Game 4 victory in Kansas City came sandwiched between two gritter outings, but the Yankees won each of his starts in the previous two rounds of the playoffs. The World Series got off to a loud start for Cole when Ohtani sent his very first pitch 373 feet into center field, but the 106-mph drive landed safely in Aaron Judge’s glove for the first out. Betts followed with a 357-foot flyout to left field, and after Freeman sliced a two-out triple, Teoscar Hernández lined out to shortstop to end the inning. Cole locked in from there, retiring the next 10 batters, including Ohtani with a swinging strikeout on an 84.4-mph knuckle curve. The only run against Cole came in the fifth inning, when Juan Soto took a risk by trying to run down an Enrique Hernández line drive to right field. The ball landed beyond Soto’s reach and bounded past him, allowing Hernández to cruise into third with a triple and later score on Will Smith’s sacrifice fly. Cole’s night ended after Teoscar Hernández led off the seventh inning with a single on the right-hander’s 88th pitch. He exited leading, 2-1, which remained the score until eighth inning, when Ohtani doubled against Tommy Kahnle and moved to third when Gleyber Torres failed to catch Soto’s one-hop throw from right field, then scored the tying run on Betts’ sacrifice fly against Luke Weaver. “I thought Gerrit was really good,” manager Aaron Boone said. “I thought he did a good job of establishing his fastball and then starting to mix as the game unfolded a little bit. I thought he got a little bit taxed there. The last probably 20, 30 pitches, I thought he kind of grinded a little bit.” It’s been a roller-coaster season for Cole, the reigning American League Cy Young Award winner, who was diagnosed during spring training with inflammation and edema in his right elbow and missed nearly the first three months of the season. He owned an uncharacteristic 5.40 ERA after his first seven starts, but he returned to form over the season’s final two months, pitching to a 2.25 ERA over his last 10 outings. “It’s a season of ups and downs, a season of perseverance,” Cole said on the eve of the ALDS. “I’m thankful that I was able to come through the injury all right and be in a good position, as good a position as I can be at this point, and feeling really good going into the most important games of the year. I just feel really blessed in that regard.” This is the second World Series for Cole, who went 1-1 with a 3.86 ERA in two starts in the 2019 Fall Classic as a member of the Astros. Houston lost that series in seven games to the Soto-led Nationals. Now in his 12th MLB season, Cole still seeks his first championship. The Yankees seek their first since 2009. That mission got a little harder with Friday’s loss.