NEW YORK — Gerrit Cole had baseball’s best lineup swinging at shadows. Six innings, three singles, eight strikeouts, not a run to show for it. On a Friday night in the Bronx, the Yankees ace looked like the pitcher they signed to win exactly these games.
Then the seventh inning arrived, and with it a choice.
A sellout crowd of 46,450 had come to Yankee Stadium for the first meeting with the Dodgers since the 2024 World Series. They watched a taut 1-0 game turn on a pair of split-second calls from the New York dugout and the third-base coaching box.
Neither call involved a swing by a Yankees hitter. Both would decide the night.
With lefty reliever Brent Headrick warm and left-handed slugger Max Muncy due up, manager Aaron Boone left his right-handed ace in the game. Muncy answered with a two-run homer that carried 416 feet to right field, flipping a 1-0 deficit into a 2-1 Dodgers win and snapping the four-game winning streak the Yankees carried out of the All-Star break.
Boone stays with Cole, and Muncy makes him pay
Cole had retired 10 straight before Mookie Betts drew a six-pitch, leadoff walk in the seventh, the first free pass Yankees ace issued all night. Betts was the Dodgers’ first baserunner since the third inning. Boone walked to the mound with both Headrick and Fernando Cruz ready.
No change came. Yankees manager Boone asked his ace a simple question and got the answer he half expected.
“You got one more in you?” Boone asked. “Of course,” Cole replied.
Cole jumped ahead of Muncy 0-2. He thought he had strike three on a slider that clipped the top of the zone, but the pitch was called a ball and catcher Austin Wells did not use the Yankees’ last challenge. Muncy fouled off pitches, worked the count even, then drove a hanging slider into the right-field seats for his 18th home run of the year.
Boone did not hide from it afterward. The Yankees skipper said the bullpen was set and the moment called for a move he did not make.
“I got Headrick teed up there. That’s on me,” Boone said.
A gem spoiled by a single pitch
The home run overshadowed what was Cole’s sharpest outing since Tommy John surgery. He allowed two runs on four hits with one walk and eight strikeouts over six-plus innings, throwing a season-high 103 pitches in his 10th start back.
The Yankees’ star pitcher framed the mistake the way pitchers do, refusing to blame the leash. He said he trusted his stuff to the end.
“My mindset is I can always make another pitch,” Cole said. “It’s just one more pitch.”
He gave Muncy full credit for punishing the miss, then summed up the night in a few blunt words.
“It’s not where I wanted,” the Yankees ace said of the slider. “But I looked at the swing and it was pretty excellent. It stinks.”
Rojas sends Grisham, and the Dodgers cut him down
The Cole call was not the only decision that burned the Yankees. In the eighth, Trent Grisham drew a one-out walk and Ben Rice doubled off the right-center-field wall. Third-base coach Luis Rojas waved Grisham home from first base.
Grisham did not get the best jump, and he ranks in the 32nd percentile in sprint speed. Center fielder Andy Pages relayed to Betts, who fired home on the run to catcher Dalton Rushing for the tag. Replay upheld the out.
Holding Grisham would have left runners on second and third with one out and Paul Goldschmidt due up. Instead, the Dodgers intentionally walked Goldschmidt and got Cody Bellinger to fly out to end the threat. The Yankees manager backed the send anyway.
“You’ve got to push the envelope a little bit with one out,” Boone said. “I don’t have an issue with the send.”
Grisham said he never hesitated, that he read the double off the wall and ran on contact.
“I saw it was a double off the wall, so I’m assuming go at all times,” the Yankees outfielder said.
A quiet offense and a missed chance in the standings
The bats gave Cole nothing to work with. The Yankees managed six hits, went 0-for-4 with runners in scoring position and left six on base against Roki Sasaki and three Dodgers lefties. Their only run was unearned.
It came in the fourth. Jasson Dominguez doubled, took third when Pages bobbled the ball, then scored on a passed ball that got by Rushing. Sasaki went 5 2/3 innings and did not allow an earned run, flashing a fastball that touched 101 mph.
Ben Rice tipped his cap to the young right-hander after the game.
“He was getting some early contact, getting some miss, and just keeping us off balance,” the Yankees slugger said.
The loss stung in the AL East. With the Red Sox sweeping a doubleheader from the Rays, the Yankees could have picked up a game and a half but settled for a half-game, sitting 2 1/2 back at 54-43. Cole fell to 3-5 despite lowering his ERA to 3.93.
New York turns to Ryan Weathers on Saturday against Emmet Sheehan, with Yoshinobu Yamamoto looming in Sunday’s finale. The Yankees offense that has scored the fewest runs in the majors over the past month will need to wake up fast. For one night, two decisions, not a shortage of arms, defined the result.
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