CHICAGO — Two outs into the ninth inning, a three-run cushion the Yankees had nursed for seven innings suddenly felt like almost nothing at all.
David Bednar had been nearly untouchable for more than two months. Then Chase Meidroth turned on a pitch and drove it out, and a comfortable evening at Rate Field turned nervous in a hurry. The tying run was gone, but the lead was not.
Bednar steadied himself, retired the final batter, and preserved a result the Yankees had spent all night protecting. The Yankees held on for a 3-2 win over the Chicago White Sox on Tuesday, the kind of low-margin game a banged-up contender has learned to survive.
For a lineup missing much of its middle, every run has become precious. On this night, three of them were enough, because the pitching gave nothing away until the very end.
Cole sets the tone with six shutout innings
The night belonged to the Yankees ace, Gerrit Cole, who kept the White Sox off the board across six scoreless innings, allowing four hits and two walks while striking out seven on 99 pitches. He earned the win in his 12th start back from Tommy John surgery.
The workload mattered as much as the line. Cole’s outing came after the previous two Yankees starters had combined for just six innings, leaving a bullpen that has been leaned on hard. His length gave Yankees manager Aaron Boone room to breathe with the relief corps late in a division race.
The one wobble came in the fourth, when Cole briefly lost the strike zone and loaded the bases. He needed a season-high 32 pitches to work out of the jam, then came back out for two more clean innings rather than handing an early lead to a taxed bullpen.
Cole finished his July on a strong note. He posted a 2.97 ERA across five starts in the month, a sharp turn from the 6.12 mark he carried through five June starts. His final pitch Tuesday was a 97 mph fastball for his seventh strikeout to end the sixth.
The right-hander credits sharper instincts and his catchers
Cole framed the turnaround as a matter of feel returning, the small in-game reads that come back only with reps after a long layoff. He pointed to command and to the work behind the plate.
“My instincts are sharper, my reads are better, I’m in the flow of things, I’m getting pitch ideas or pitch locations that are proving to be the right ones,” Cole said. “That comes with sharpening up all facets of the game. Bringing the stuff in tighter, bringing the location in tighter. And to be honest, our catchers have been great. They deserve a lot of credit for the run prevention.”
The Yankees manager has watched the veteran settle into a rhythm start by start. Boone described a pitcher rebuilding his routine and his timing after surgery cost him so much of the past year.
“I just feel like he’s getting in more and more of a rhythm of getting his competitive sea legs again and getting into the routine every fifth and sixth day,” Boone said.
The Yankees have made tight, clean games their formula while the injuries pile up. Cole said the group has refused to use the missing bats as an excuse.
“We’re trying to play as clean and as crisp baseball as we can in all facets of the game,” Cole said. “Keep trying to improve, keep trying to push ourselves. Just keep pushing, pushing, pushing to get a little bit better. We know we have some guys that are injured, but at the same time, that shouldn’t affect the way we go about our business and the way we try to play our brand of baseball. I think we’ve been committed to that and it’s paid off for us.”
A stand-in’s two-run double proves decisive
All of the New York offense arrived in one burst. The Yankees pushed across three runs in the second inning, and the biggest swing came from a player few fans had circled before the game.
Filling in on the infield, Max Schuemann ripped a two-run double that cleared the third-base bag. Anthony Volpe added an RBI double in the same frame. That was the entire scoring output, and it held up.
Cole even helped himself with the glove. In the second, Colson Montgomery lofted a pop-up near the mound. The Yankees catcher, Austin Wells, drifted over and stepped on Cole’s foot before the pitcher waved him off, then juggled the ball and secured it bare-handed while backpedaling.
Cole made light of the near-miss afterward, turning a routine play into the night’s comic relief.
“I started to work back into the ball after I called it and Austin stepped on my foot,” Cole said. “I thought I was cooked, thought I was going down, but luckily I made some juggling act and saved it.”
A gritty win tightens the AL East race
Angel Chivilli, pitching on his 24th birthday, and Brent Headrick bridged the middle innings without allowing a run before Bednar took the ninth. The closer’s two-run homer to Meidroth snapped a 21-game scoreless streak, his first runs allowed since May 18, but he closed it out for the save. Anthony Kay took the loss for Chicago.
The result fit a larger trend. Despite the injuries and an offense that has sputtered for weeks, the Yankees have won 11 of their past 15 games and improved to 61-46. The White Sox fell to 55-51.
With the trade deadline days away, the standings give the push added weight. New York sits 1 1/2 games behind the Rays for first place in the AL East, close enough that a clean win in Chicago carries real value in the postseason race.
Volpe said the Yankees have come to embrace the grind-it-out style, win by win, as part of who this team is.
“I think it’s becoming part of our identity and we’re taking pride in it,” Volpe said. “That’s all that matters. As long as we get the job done, we’re just going to keep working on that.”
The series continues Wednesday, with the Yankees chasing more of the same and the Rays still just ahead.
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