New York – This was not what Gerrit Cole had in mind for his debut in pinstripes, and yet it was.
Cole extended his regular-season streak of victories to 19, leading New York over the Philadelphia Phillies 6-3 on Monday night for the Yankees’ seventh win in a row.
With the Yankee Stadium seats empty due to the novel coronavirus, wife Amy watched from home as Cole pitched his home debut for New York.
“Mom and dad had a few of neighbors over in California,” Cole said. “They sent us some pictures as they were watching the game. My folks, they’re a little bummed that they couldn’t be here, to be honest.”
New York improved to 8-1 for the third time after 1988 and 2003 — but it’s the equivalent of 22-3 over a 162-game season. The streak of the major league-best Yankees is tantamount to a 19-game spurt.
“Even though it is a shorter season, it’s a long ways to go, right” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “We need to keep grinding now.”
Cole (3-0) allowed one run and five hits in six innings, struck out four and walked one on 91 pitches, leaving after a 1-hour, 7-minute rain delay ahead of the seventh. His grunts could be heard as easily as Rafael Nadal’s at a grand slam final.
A month shy of his 30th birthday, the right-hander reached 99.3 mph, but he did not have his best arsenal. Cole threw 46 fastballs, 24 sliders, 18 knuckle-curves and three changeups.
Signed to a $324 million, nine-year contract, Cole grew up a Yankees fan, and at his signing news conference in December brought along the now-yellowed sign he had held up as an 11-year-old at the 2001 World Series: “Yankee Fan Today Tomorrow Forever.”
With no fans, there was no Roll Call by adoring Bleacher Creatures counting on Cole to lead the Yankees to their first title since 2009.
“It was special put on the uniform. It was special to warm up in that bullpen and it was special to take the field from that side of the field,” Cole said. “Obviously, pre-coronavirus, when you dream, you don’t dream about pitching in a stadium without any fans. But I guess we’re kind of getting used to it at that point. So I just try to savor the things that that I enjoyed.”
He is 19-0 with a 1.86 ERA over 25 starts, the sixth-longest streak of winning decisions behind Carl Hubbell (24), Roy Face (22) and Rube Marquard, Roger Clemens and Jake Arrieta (20 each). Cole did lose to Washington and Max Scherzer in last year’s World Series opener, part of a postseason in which Cole was 4-1 for Houston.
DJ LeMahieu led off the bottom of the first with a home run against Arietta (0-1), who made his first appearance since surgery last August to remove a bone spur from his right elbow.
Philadelphia was playing after a one-week layoff caused by additional testing; the virus-ravaged Miami Marlins had been at Citizens Bank Park on July 26.
“It seems like the deck is stacked against us,” Arrieta said. “But that doesn’t matter. This is a situation that’s been difficult for every team to deal with.”
After Jay Bruce tied the score with a home run off Cole on a full-count fastball in the third, Brett Gardner led off the bottom half with a drive down the left-field line for the first over-the-wall, opposite-field home run of his big league career.
“Gardy is my boy, but if he’s going oppo the league has a baseball problem.” former Yankees pitcher Phil Hughes tweeted.
During the rain delay, a Yankees player printed the tweet and left it for Gardner to find.
“I just texted him and gave him a hard time,” Gardner said. “All in good fun.”
Gardner is the longest-tenured Yankee and played with Hughes in the minors and in New York. He doesn’t know who printed the text and left it at his locker – yet.
“We’ve got quite a bit of baseball ahead of us and I’ve got a few pranks up my sleeve, so we’ll have some fun with it,” he said.
Aaron Hicks added an RBI double later in the inning for a 3-1 lead, and Gio Urshela blew open the game with a three-run homer in the sixth on a changeup from Deolis Guerra that landed in the visitors’ bullpen in left-center.
Acquired from Toronto for $1 on Aug. 4, 2018, Urshela is hitting .300 with three homers and nine RBIs this season and has 24 homers and 83 RBIs in 141 games for New York. He also made several sparkling defensive plays at third.
Zack Britton pitched a perfect ninth for his fourth save. New York is to 22-0-3 in its last 25 home series, matching the team record from 1935, 1995-96 and 1997-98, according to STATS.
“We got to continue to play well and try and keep racking them up,” Boone said.
Mets 7, Braves 2
In Atlanta, Jacob deGrom struck out a season-high 10 in six innings and the New York Mets snapped a five-game skid Monday night with a 7-2 victory over the Braves that was overshadowed by a season-ending injury to Atlanta ace Mike Soroka.
Soroka tore his Achilles tendon in the third inning as he took a step toward first to cover the bag – a huge blow to the two-time defending NL East champions.
Robinson Cano had three RBIs before leaving the game himself – one of three New York infielders who went down with injuries.
Wilson Ramos added a two-run homer for the Mets, who avoided a four-game sweep and ended Atlanta’s five-game winning streak.
Travis d’Arnaud homered off deGrom (1-0) in the fifth.
Soroka (0-1) allowed three hits, walked four and wound up being charged with four earned runs in 2⅓ innings, the second-shortest outing of his career.
The Mets had injury concerns, too. Jeff McNeil was scratched just before the first pitch with back tightness, and Cano exited with left groin tightness a couple of innings after shortstop Amed Rosario hobbled off with left quad tightness.
Padres 5, Dodgers 4
In San Diego, Jake Cronenworth singled home the go-ahead run in the sixth inning for San Diego, which hit three solo home runs off Walker Buehler and beat Los Angeles.
Cronenworth’s hit gave ace Chris Paddack (2-0) his first career win against the Dodgers. Cronenworth also made several nice plays at first base, where the rookie made his fifth start.
Trent Grisham, Wil Myers and Fernando Tatis Jr. homered off Buehler.
Paddack allowed three runs and five hits in six innings, struck out five and walked none.
Buehler gave up three home runs for just the second time in his career. He left after five innings with the score tied at 3 after yielding three hits while striking out three and walking three. Brusdar Graterol fell to 0-2.
Reigning NL MVP Cody Bellinger homered off Kirby Yates leading off the ninth before the closer struck out three batters for his first save this year. Yates led the majors with 41 saves last season.
Rockies 7, Giants 6
In Denver, Nolan Arenado hit his first homer of the season to ignite a five-run sixth inning and Colorado matched its best start in franchise history by beating San Francisco.
The Rockies are 7-2 for the fifth time in team history. They also had that mark in 1995, ’97, 2011 and ’15.
Trailing 4-1 in the sixth, Arenado lined a two-run homer to left off Johnny Cueto. The breakout inning also included an RBI single from Matt Kemp and a go-ahead single from David Dahl that also brought in another run on right fielder Alex Dickerson’s errant throw. Chris Owings added an insurance run with a solo homer in the eighth.
Jeff Hoffman (1-0) pitched 1⅔ scoreless innings in relief to earn the win. Jairo Diaz got the final out to earn his second save.
Mike Yastrzemski, Chadwick Tromp and Dickerson went deep for the Giants. Wandy Peralta (1-1) took the loss in relief after allowing three runs, two earned.
Reds 3, Indians 2
In Cincinnati, Joey Votto hit a two-run, go-ahead homer, Nick Castellanos also connected and Cincinnati beat Cleveland.
Sonny Gray (3-0) shook off a tough start to complete six strong innings, and Cincinnati ended a six-game home losing streak against their in-state rival.
Votto snapped an 0-for-11 skid when he followed Shogo Akiyama’s leadoff single in the sixth with a no-doubt shot off Zach Plesac (0-1).
Indians manager Terry Francona missed his second straight game and the first of four straight Reds-Indians games while dealing with a gastrointestinal condition not believed to be connected to COVID-19. First base and catching coach Sandy Alomar managed.
Francisco Lindor’ hits his third home run of the season.
Gray allowed four hits and two runs, one earned, with two walks and eight strikeouts.
In Other Games
Twins 5, Pirates 4
Cubs 2, Royals 0
White Sox 6, Brewers 4
Athletics 11, Mariners 1
Source : Baseball – The Japan Times