NEW YORK — For two starts, Gerrit Cole made his comeback look effortless. He had not allowed a run all season. He talked like a pitcher who never missed a day. On Wednesday night, reality finally caught up to him, and it cost the Yankees in a way they could not afford.
Cole gave up three home runs to the Cleveland Guardians, the Yankees offense went quiet for a second straight night without Aaron Judge, and New York dropped a 5-4 decision at Yankee Stadium. It was the first true bump in Cole’s road back from Tommy John surgery, and it dropped a series to a contender the Yankees keep failing to beat.
A scoreless streak that finally ended
Cole entered the night carrying a perfect ledger. He had thrown six scoreless innings against the Rays in his May 22 season debut, then followed with 6 2/3 more shutout frames against the Royals on May 27. After a clean first inning Wednesday, his scoreless streak reached 13 2/3 innings.
Then it stopped. Kyle Manzardo turned on a 2-2 curveball and drove it off the facing of the second deck in right field, his second home run in as many nights. Cole tipped his cap to the swing rather than fault his pitch.
“Impressive swing,” Cole said. “He was able to beat it to the spot and lift it.”
That solo shot was only the beginning of a long-ball problem that defined Cole’s evening and ultimately the Yankees’ night.
Three home runs sink the Yankees ace
Here is where the game turned against New York. After Jazz Chisholm Jr. answered Manzardo with a home run into the second deck off Cleveland power righthander Gavin Williams, Cole gave the lead right back.
In the fourth, Cole recorded his first strikeout by freezing Chase DeLauter on a 97-mph fastball, helped by a successful challenge from catcher Austin Wells on a ball call. But Rhys Hoskins followed by pulling a 1-0 slider just inside the left-field foul pole for a two-run homer that made it 3-1. Cole knew exactly what went wrong on the pitch.
“The one pitch that really just mechanically got away from me,” Cole said of the slider.
Jose Caballero trimmed the gap with a solo home run in the bottom of the fourth to make it 3-2. Cole answered with a 1-2-3 fifth, but the third blow was coming. Jose Ramirez, a longtime tormentor at Yankee Stadium, launched his third career homer off Cole into the second deck in right to push Cleveland ahead 4-2.
Cole’s final line told the story of a grind: 5 1/3 innings, six hits, four earned runs, one walk, two strikeouts and three home runs on 83 pitches. He fell to 1-1 with a 2.00 ERA.
The Ramirez problem at the Stadium
Ramirez has long owned this ballpark, and Wednesday only added to his legend in the Bronx. Entering the night, he ranked first among all visiting players with at least 100 at-bats at the current Yankee Stadium, which opened in 2009. His numbers there were absurd, a .402 average with a .476 on-base percentage and a 1.185 OPS.
He kept feasting. Beyond the home run, Ramirez singled in his second at-bat to improve to 10-for-25 in his career against Cole. He singled again in the eighth off lefthander Tim Hill and later scored to make it 5-3. Cole offered a blunt assessment of the challenge Ramirez presents.
“Well, he’s a Hall of Famer,” Cole said. “He’s got incredibly quick hands and incredibly great barrel accuracy.”
There is a silver lining for the Yankees in the bigger picture. Ramirez has generally not carried his regular-season Stadium dominance into the postseason against New York.
Encouraging signs buried in the loss
Despite the result, Cole’s outing carried real positives for the Yankees. The biggest was his velocity, which often dips for pitchers returning from Tommy John surgery. Cole’s held firm all night. His second-to-last pitch was a 98.5-mph fastball that Hoskins fouled off, and the sinker that walked Hoskins a pitch later still registered 97.8 mph.
His efficiency was also vintage Cole for most of the night. He needed just eight pitches in the first inning and 10 in the fifth, sitting at only 60 pitches through five frames. A 23-pitch sixth inning, in which he recorded only one out, finally ended his evening.
Williams was simply a touch better. The 26-year-old held the Yankees to three runs and four hits over 5 1/3 innings with six strikeouts, improving to 9-3 with a 3.20 ERA. A longtime admirer of Cole, Williams made a point of meeting the 2023 Cy Young winner before the series. The two righthanders share an agent in Scott Boras.
A lineup still missing its captain
The Yankees offense looked lifeless for a second straight night, and the reason was obvious. New York managed only five hits and continues to scuffle without Aaron Judge in the middle of the order.
Judge’s status remained murky. The Yankees sought a second opinion Wednesday, having a specialist review imaging from Monday that revealed a bone bruise in his right shoulder and upper rib cage area. Manager Aaron Boone had little to share before the game.
“I’ve got nothing for you, I’m sorry,” Boone said of a Judge update.
The postgame news offered little comfort either. Boone explained that the specialist had confirmed the initial diagnosis, but that Judge had undergone additional imaging to pinpoint the issue more precisely.
“The specialist got back to us, confirmed what we had seen to this point,” Boone said. “He’s gone back, though, for some more imaging. They just want to get some more specific spots. We’ll have more on that later tonight, tomorrow.”
A troubling pattern against good teams
The loss fit a worrying trend that keeps following the Yankees. With the series defeat, New York still owns just one series win all season against a team that entered Wednesday at .500 or better, a March 30 to April 1 victory over the Mariners.
The close-game struggles are just as alarming. The Yankees are now 6-12 in one-run games. Those 12 one-run losses are tied for the second-most in the majors, and the .333 winning percentage in such games ranks third-worst in baseball. For a team with championship goals, those margins will need to flip.
In the end, a single rough start from Cole is not the Yankees‘ real worry. His stuff lacked its usual bite, but his health and velocity pointed in the right direction. The deeper concerns sit elsewhere, in a lineup waiting on Judge and a team that cannot seem to win the games and series that matter most.
On Thursday, Yankees left-hander Carlos Rodon will take the mound in the series finale while Cleveland planned to send right-hander Slade Cecconi. Rodón entered at 1-2 with a 3.32 ERA while Cecconi carried a 3-5 record and 5.25 ERA.
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