Gerrit Cole had been waiting for the Bombers to catch up all month. The Yankees’ ace dominated whatever lineup had come up against him from the start of the season, but the Bombers bats had not yet reached that level … until Friday night.
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Cole shut down the Tigers for six innings, striking out 12 and not walking a batter and the Yankees hit five home runs, including two from Aaron Judge, as they ran away with the series opener against Detroit 10-0 at Yankee Stadium.
It was the Yankees’ third win in the last five games. They closed out the first month of the season battling their way out of the basement of the American League East.
“Teams are gonna go through ups and downs throughout the season,” Judge said. “We started out on kind of a downer so far here in April. That’s why we play 162.
‘Especially you know coming back to our homestead here and opening up with 10 runs like we did… it is the way we want to start a home-stand,” he continued. “We got big Cole on the mound, who’s always dominant, always ready to go, always prepared. He always gets us fired up and locked in and we just responded and kept it going throughout the whole night.”
It was Cole’s 15th straight regular season start with at least seven strikeouts. He is the first Yankees ever to strike out 10 and not issue a walk in three consecutive starts. He has four such games this season, tying the record with Mike Mussina in 2001. Cole scattered four hits, threw 87 pitches, 61 for strikes. He had 21 swings and misses and 17 called strikes.
Through six starts, Cole has pitched to a 1.43 ERA, allowed one home run and three walks. He’s struckout 62 over 37.2 innings pitched.
“I came out with a goal to try to settle in a bit earlier this year and I think I’m on the right track to do that,” Cole said. “Still making some adjustments. Have to stay sharp in terms of counter punches and continue to find all four corners of the strike zone. But I’m certainly pleased how we’ve gotten off to and we’ve put ourselves in a good position to continue to get stronger.”
The Tigers were hit-less against him until Wilson Ramos’ two-out single in the second. After that, Cole struck out six straight batters. He gave up back-to-back singles in the fourth to Jonathan Schoop and Jeimer Candelario. Cole was about to lose Ramos that inning, falling behind 3-1, when he got him to swing on a 90 mile per hour changeup and caught him looking on another to end the inning and the Tigers only threat against him.
The Yankees pitchers — Cole, Luis Cessa, Wandy Peralta and Lucas Luetge — combined for 18 strikeouts. That tied a franchise record for most strikeouts in a nine inning game. It’s the fourth time Yankees pitchers have punched out 18, the first since Sept. 29, 2017.
And Cole had the full strength of the Bombers’ offense backing him up Friday.
Judge had been out of the starting lineup for two straight games with mysteriously vague “lower body” soreness. He pinch hit in Thursday afternoon’s loss to the Orioles, but was back in the starting lineup on Friday as the Yankees manager said he would be.
The 29-year-old hit a solo shot in the third inning and his second career grand slam in the Yankees’ five-run fourth inning.
Judge and DJ LeMahieu were removed from the game in the top of the sixth inning.
Clint Frazier ripped his second homer of the season in the second inning and Aaron Hicks snapped an 0-for-18 slump with his fourth home run of the season in the third. He also drove in a run on a sacrifice fly in the fourth. Rougned Odor finished off the fifth inning with his fourth homer of the season.
Gio Urshela had singled in Giancarlo Stanton, who had his third straight three-hit game, in the first inning. Stanton’s three-straight, three-hit games are a career-high for him.
“We had a lot of good at bats a lot, a lot of nice homers and great at bats across the board,” Stanton said of the Yankees offense. “So of course we got a great night out of Gerri as usual. Good night, good little chill and relax for tonight and know that we got another one that is just as important tomorrow.”