NEW YORK — Nineteen months of rehab, six rebuilt innings and one roaring Bronx crowd pointed toward a perfect homecoming. Then the eighth inning arrived, and the night flipped on one bad hop.
Gerrit Cole walked off the Yankee Stadium mound Friday with a 1-0 lead. What happened after he left turned a feel-good Yankees story into a familiar gut punch.
The Yankees fell 4-2 to the Tampa Bay Rays in the series opener. The defeat was their third in a row and 10th in 14 games. It pushed the Yankees a season-high 5½ games back in the American League East.
Cole gave the Yankees everything they wanted in his first start since elbow surgery. The Yankees relievers who followed him could not hold the lead.
Cole looks like his old self in long-awaited return
The 35-year-old right-hander had not pitched in a real game since the 2024 World Series. He underwent Tommy John surgery in March 2025. The wait cost the Yankees almost two months of this season.
None of that showed. Cole tossed six scoreless innings and allowed two hits. He walked three, struck out two and threw just 72 pitches. His four-seam fastball averaged 96.1 mph, the same heat that earned him the 2023 AL Cy Young Award.
Trouble found him early. Chandler Simpson singled and Junior Caminero walked to open the game, but Cole picked off Simpson and struck out Yandy Diaz looking. He then retired 10 in a row before Cedric Mullins singled in the fifth. Manager Aaron Boone liked how his ace mixed pitches against an aggressive Rays lineup.
Boone praised the way Cole blended his arsenal under pressure.
“Obviously really efficient,” Boone said. “He did a good job of mixing his four-seam and his sinker.”
Cole admitted the moment carried real weight. The walkout music and the focus all felt like a fresh start for the Yankees.
Cole framed the outing as something close to a first game all over again.
“It was almost like a second debut kind of a situation,” Cole said. “It was an enjoyable moment and it was nice to get back in the fire.”
Eighth-inning collapse hands Rays the opener
The Yankees carried Cole’s lead into the late innings. Austin Wells, mired in a 3-for-38 slump, supplied the only run with a fifth-inning solo homer off Nick Martinez. Fernando Cruz escaped a seventh-inning jam to keep the Yankees ahead 1-0.
Then the eighth unraveled in a hurry. Jose Caballero, back at shortstop in his first game off the injured list, booted Simpson’s leadoff grounder for an error. The miscue opened the door, and Tampa Bay charged through it against the Yankees.
Tim Hill could not record a single out. Caminero singled up the middle to put runners on the corners. Jonathan Aranda followed with a game-tying double, a 106.5 mph line drive that drove home his AL-leading 38th RBI.
New York intentionally walked Diaz to load the bases. Richie Palacios then chopped a comebacker that ticked off Hill’s glove. The ball skipped over a leaping Caballero and rolled into center for a two-run single. Ryan Vilade added a sacrifice fly for a 4-1 cushion.
Hill was charged with four runs, three earned, without retiring a batter. The Caballero error turned a tidy pitcher’s duel into a four-run avalanche for the Yankees.
Caballero took full responsibility for the play.
“It’s a line-drive short hop and kind of skipped on me,” Caballero said. “But I’ve got to make a play on it. No excuses.”
Boone agreed the Yankees had to convert the chance. He said Simpson hit it hard, but the grounder still needed to be fielded cleanly.
Yankees bats strand runners again in the Bronx
The Yankees lineup gave Cole little support and squandered chances all night. New York racked up 11 hits yet went just 2-for-12 with runners in scoring position. The Yankees stranded two runners in the first and wasted a leadoff single in the second.
Trent Grisham, back after missing Thursday with a sore knee, collected three hits. He doubled to lead off the third but was thrown out trying to score on a Ben Rice single.
The Yankees skipper saw better at-bats from the Yankees than in the two losses to Toronto that came before. The approach improved, but the results did not.
Boone said the hitters competed without cashing in.
“I was encouraged,” Boone said of the approach. “We just couldn’t break through.”
The Yankees clawed one back in the eighth. Cody Bellinger doubled with one out, and Jazz Chisholm Jr. ripped an RBI triple to make it 4-2. Caballero then grounded out to strand Chisholm at third.
The Yankees made a last push in the ninth against closer Bryan Baker. Wells walked with one out and moved up on a Grisham groundout. That brought Judge to the plate as the tying run.
Judge lifted a fly ball to left-center, but Mullins ran it down on the warning track to end it. The slugger went 0-for-4 and stretched a brutal slide to 1-for-24. His average dropped to .245, and he has gone a career-high 11 games without an RBI.
Rays extend dominance over New York and the AL East
Tampa Bay improved to a major-league-best 34-15 and notched its 16th win in 19 games. The Rays have taken five straight and are a perfect 4-0 against the Yankees this season. It was their 14th comeback win of the year.
Ian Seymour earned the win, and Baker locked up his 14th save in 17 chances. Martinez allowed only the Wells homer, leaving his ERA at 1.51. Tampa Bay also moved to 14-2 against the AL East.
Martinez pointed to a never-quit mindset that defines the clubhouse. “That’s who we are. I think everyone’s bought into our style of play, how we play,” Martinez said. “We don’t give up, man. We’re not down until it’s over.”
For the Yankees, Cole’s return was the lone bright spot in a sinking stretch. Boone acknowledged the maddening pattern and the need for the Yankees to fix it.
The Yankees manager conceded the matchup keeps slipping away from his club.
“It kind of hasn’t bounced our way against them,” Boone said of the Rays. “But we’ve got to find a way to beat that club.”
Cole treated the night as a step forward despite the result. He threw 86 pitches in his final Triple-A rehab start last week but was capped at 72 in his Yankees return. Boone said his ace was simply done for the evening.
Cole said the long climb back made the outing feel surreal even in defeat.
“Long road, and yet at some point it was almost like I’d never left,” Cole said. “We couldn’t close it off, but it’s a good step forward.”
Ryan Weathers starts Saturday for the Yankees against Rays right-hander Drew Rasmussen. The Yankees will try to halt the skid before the deficit grows wider.
How do you see the loss? Can the Yankees bounce back to win the series?
