With a healthy Cole, can Yankees get back on a roll?

This story was excerpted from Bryan Hoch’s Yankees Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

Gerrit Cole crouched behind the Yankee Stadium mound just after 7 p.m. ET on Friday evening, collecting his thoughts in a familiar ritual. Completing his comeback from Tommy John surgery, the ace right-hander compared his swirling emotions to a “second debut.”

It also represented a second Opening Day of sorts for the Yankees, who have been looking ahead to this since pitchers and catchers reported to Tampa, Fla. They are not yet whole, with stars like Max Fried and Giancarlo Stanton still on the injured list, but Cole’s appearance provided a timely boost.

“It’s a little bit like riding a bike,” Cole said. “Same old thought process: compete, go pitch to pitch, take it one pitch at a time and give it everything you’ve got. That’s pretty much what I tell myself when I get down. Just let it rip downrange and see what I’ve got.”

Pitching in a big league game for the first time in 569 days, Cole sensed a rush of emotions throughout his start on Friday.

That led to him being taxed through six scoreless innings, prompting manager Aaron Boone to turn the game over to the bullpen -- and providing a reminder that the Yankees still have work to do. The game turned in the eighth, with José Caballero’s error at shortstop opening the door for a four-run Rays frame.

But the Yankees returned serve on Sunday, with their captain leading the charge. Aaron Judge’s fourth career walk-off homer cleared the right-field wall to power a 2-0 victory, coming after Judge opened the day in a 4-for-35 slide.

Judge has said he needs to make sure he’s swinging at the right pitches, and in squaring up that Kevin Kelly sinker, he did.

“It’s a process, just like it’s been all year long, all the way since March,” Judge said. “Obviously, I want to go 4-for-4. So if I’m 4-for-4, I’m pleased. If I’m not 4-for-4, probably not.”

Off to one of its best starts in franchise history, Tampa Bay has served notice that the American League East will not be handed to the Yankees, still holding a 3 1/2-game lead entering Tuesday.

Boone characterized his team’s struggles as a “crappy” stretch, and it’s difficult to mount an argument against that. After arriving in Milwaukee on May 8, the Yankees went on to lose 10 of 15, including a sweep by the Brewers.

“I feel like we’ve played well through some of it, actually. We’ve just had some really tough losses,” Boone said. “I didn’t think we played our best baseball in Milwaukee, and then we hit a stretch where I don’t think we swung the bats great.”

As Boone noted, run production has been a major issue, with the Yanks averaging just two runs per game over their last 10 losses through Sunday.

“It’s been a little up and down offensively through this stretch, in and around a couple of heartbreaking losses where it just got away from us,” Boone said. “Overall, we’ve got to be a little more consistent offensively, but I do feel good about where we are and where the mindset is.”

The bullpen has also been a concern. One enduring image is David Bednar’s blown save May 17 against the Mets, serving up a game-tying home run to Tyrone Taylor with two outs in the ninth inning. But there have been other stumbles; Yankees relievers were 1-5 with a 4.56 ERA and five blown saves in their last 14 games entering Sunday.

“That’s baseball,” Bednar said. “You’ve got to just keep putting your foot on the gas and going after guys.”

Sunday’s win boosted the Yankees to 2-9 against teams with a .500 record or better. Part of that is that the AL as a whole has been underwhelming to this point, but every other team had at least four such wins entering Sunday.

“We’ve got to nail down leads,” Boone said. “A little bit of everything in this stretch has prevented us from winning baseball games. At the end of the day, that’s what we’re here for. But I do feel like we’re in a place where there’s no reason we can’t go start ripping off wins.”

No wonder Cole remarked that Friday felt about as “high-stakes” a game as you could experience in May. The Yankees would do well to treat it as a pivot point, looking to re-establish their early dominance on this trip to Kansas City and Sacramento.

“It was nice,” Cole said, “to get back in the fire.”