Yankees split doubleheader with Rays as Giancarlo Stanton leaves second game with hamstring injury
It may be a 60-game sprint of a season, with occasional seven-inning games, but it is still going to be a grind. Saturday, Gerrit Cole had to grind it out just to come up an out short of earning a win in the Yankees’ 8-4 seven-inning afternoon game. The Rays made the Yankees grind through a 5-3 loss in the nightcap.
The split of the doubleheader gave the Yankees their third loss in the last four games and pulled the Rays within three games of the Bombers in the standings now a quarter of the way through the season.
The Yankees hitters picked up Cole in the first game, while Mike King and the Yankees pitchers walked eight in the nightcap, digging such a big hole that even a two-out, two-run single by DJ LeMahieu in the seventh couldn’t salvage the game.
Giancarlo Stanton exited the second game with what the team called hamstring tightness.
Cole, who had to work hard just to get through 4 2/3 innings, allowed three earned runs on six hits. He walked one and struck out 10.
But he needed 107 pitches, because the Rays were battling him every at-bat.
Yoshi Tsutsugo’s 12-pitch walk in the fourth seemed to be the turning point for Cole.
“There weren’t any quick outs,” Cole said. “Like I mean I still lament falling behind a couple of those guys, especially to start the inning, but you know sometimes we made that up. Then we just never — even with pitches where we executed like two or three times in a row to start the at-bat — we just never got the pop out or the ground out or the fly ball.”
“It ended up going 2-2 and then finishing with a strikeout I felt like, or getting late to the count and then we got the contact in the field,” Cole continued. “It just ran the count up.”
The fatigue seemed to set in for Cole in the fifth when he gave up a one-out double to Mike Zunino, and a two-out RBI double to Ji-Man Choi. Aaron Boone left Cole in, even at a season-high 104 pitches, to try and get him through five and to qualify for the win. Instead, three pitches later Cole gave up a two-run homer to Rays designated hitter Jose Martinez.
“Credit to them, they made him work obviously and really drove his count up. They were able to kind of get a guy on base it seemed like every inning,” Boone said. “But I thought he was pretty sharp overall for not being able to get through five. Then a couple mistakes there at the end that cost him being able to get through. I thought he did a good job of at least making it tough on them.”
Not as tough, however, as the Yankees’ lineup made it on the Rays’ pitchers.
Ford’s first home run of the season was a huge 437-foot, two-run home run off Rays starter Tyler Glasnow in the third. It snapped a 13-inning scoreless streak by the Yankees, who were shut out by Blake Snell and the Rays’ bullpen on Friday night.
That seemed to snap the Yankees’ bats back to life.
“I think if you look at the whole year, we’ve done a really good job on a lot of different fronts offensively. It’s a scary lineup so whenever you get in there, just try to contribute, maybe be a little sparkplug after last night,” Ford said of his role Saturday. “Obviously, we faced a really good guy last night in Snell, as well as they brought in a bunch of really good bullpen arms, so just bouncing back, leaving yesterday in the past.
Gio Urshela followed Ford with a two-run double in that inning.
Friday night was the first game this season the Yankees went without a home run, but they got back on track Saturday.
Stanton hit his third of the season, a solo homer, and the first since July 25 off former Mets lefty Sean Gilmartin in the fifth. Aaron Judge hammered his eighth, a two-run shot, in the sixth, also off Gilmartin.
Judge’s eight home runs lead the majors, which is just what his teammates expect.
“It’s kind of what you expect from him, honestly,” Ford said. “That’s the weird thing. He’s such an intimidating figure when he gets in the box that you think it can happen on any pitch. Just personally him being him and being a friend and everything, it’s great to see him get off to the start that he has and just him being healthy. That’s what he can do and hopefully it continues.”
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