In a season described bluntly as a massive failure for the Yankees, who will miss the playoffs for the first time since 2016 and only the fifth time since the three division format began in 1995, there are very few certain things.

Perhaps the only sure thing occurs every five days or so when Gerrit Cole is on the mound, which makes him a strong possibility that he is the likely AL Cy Young winner. In an era of expanded playoffs since 1995, the winners from non-playoff teams were Pat Hentgen in 1996, Roger Clemens in 1997 and 1998, Roy Halladay in 2003, Zack Greinke in 2009, Felix Hernandez in 2010, David Price in 2012, Max Scherzer in 2013, Corey Kluber in 2014 and Robbie Ray in 2021.

For the most part through the first four years of his nine-year, $324 million deal, Cole has been as good as advertised. His first year saw him win seven games in a pandemic season but struggle against Tampa Bay. He was solid last year but the home run ball plagued him but his two starts against Cleveland were a major reason why the Yankees overcame their hitting woes to reach the ALCS for the fifth time since winning their last worst series title in 2009.

He also is one of the more compelling reasons to watch the Yankees this year, especially since around the middle of last month. The Yankees are 23-10 in his starts and 58-67 in games started by anyone else.

And the latest piece of compelling evidence appeared Wednesday when Cole pitched his second two-hitter of the season to up his record to 15-4 in a game that potentially spoiled Toronto’s hopes for the second or third wild-card spot.

“That’s just a clinic in pitching,” manager Aaron Boone told reporters in Toronto. “I think it embodied his season right there. Just fun to watch him go do that and absolutely put an exclamation point on the Cy Young Award with that performance.”

Since their swoon began in earnest following the July 4 win over Baltimore when the Yankees were 49-39, the team is 32-38. In that span, they are 10-5 when Cole pitches and 22-33 in all other games.

The Cy Young award in some ways is the MVP for pitchers and while others do present decent cases such as Pablo Lopez, it seems Cole’s recent resume will solidify him being the Yankees first Cy Young winner since Roger Clemens went 20-3 in 2001.

Back in 2001, Clemens pitched 220 1/3 innings and struck out 213. This year Cole finished at 205 innings and 222 strikeouts. In 2001 Clemens won the prize while posting a 3.51 ERA, this year Cole is at 2.63, which puts him in the lead for the ERA title ahead of former Yankee Sonny Gray.

In 2001, Clemens allowed two runs or less 16 times. This year, Cole has permitted two runs or fewer 26 out of 33 times and allowed three hits nine times.

“He’s the best pitcher in the game,” Aaron Judge told reporters. “This is Gerrit Cole’s era, that’s for sure. He’s the benchmark for what an ace is supposed to like, on and off the field.”

So far the Yankees have yet to do a good job of making Cole’s era standout often in the postseason. They dropped a tough five-game ALDS to Tampa Bay, lost a wild-card game in Boston when a compromised version of Cole struggled and being unable to sweep the Guardians forced them to wait until Game 3 to start Cole against the Astros through hardly hitting was the main culprit in that series.

Finding out why the Yankees are yet to do much of anything beyond the regular season will be a subject of the external organization audit, Hal Steinbrenner will conduct in the offseason.

Until, when the Yankees look back on a mostly lost and extremely frustrating, they can smile at every time Cole took the mound and threw 3,176 pitches where he held hitters to a .205 average on 1,691 fastballs and a .186 mark on 666 sliders.

“I just try to go out there and give [the team] the best chance to win I possibly can that day, and leave it all on the field,” Cole told reporters. “That’s my goal going into every season. You need a lot of help from your teammates in order to have success.”