NEW YORK – Gerrit Cole knew what he had seen in real time, but still he reached for the dugout iPad as though an alternate angle might shift his opinion. Jacket slung across his shoulders, the Yankees’ ace watched the video frame by frame, then tossed the device toward the bench with disgust.
Just as he’d expected, that four-seamer to José Ramírez caught too much of the plate – among the first runs Cole has allowed all season, and one of three homers he surrendered in the Yankees’ 5-4 loss to the Guardians on Wednesday evening at Yankee Stadium.
“He’s a Hall of Famer,” Cole said. “He’s got incredibly quick hands and great barrel accuracy, so he can reach both sides of the plate, up and down. I guess the pitch could be a little bit better, but nevertheless it wasn’t good enough.”
Though Cole has joked that he feels as though he is working with “a new elbow” some 14 months removed from Tommy John surgery, his repaired ulnar collateral ligament did not change the outcome of his battles against Ramírez.
A longtime nemesis, Ramírez finished the evening with three hits, including a pair off Cole. Ramírez is 14-for-39 with seven extra-base hits (including three homers) lifetime off the right-hander.
“I just look at him as such a great player,” manager Aaron Boone said. “As an opponent, I don’t love seeing him come up in big spots.”
With Aaron Judge out of the lineup for a second consecutive game, continuing to undergo imaging on what has been initially diagnosed as a bone bruise of his right rib cage, the Yankees (36-25) missed an opportunity to catch the Rays (36-23) atop the American League East.
They have lost 10 of 13 against teams with records of .500 or better, including the first two of this series against Cleveland.
“They’ve been playing pretty good baseball, putting the ball in play against really good pitchers,” Jazz Chisholm Jr. said. “All of our pitchers are pretty dominant out there normally. They’ve been going out there and attacking our pitchers, taking all the right pitches and swinging at all the right ones as well.”
Chisholm and José Caballero cracked solo homers to power the early offense. But Cole’s third start of the season – coming after a 12 2/3-inning scoreless streak – was rougher than his first pair.
Kyle Manzardo cleared the right-field wall with a second-inning homer off a knuckle-curve, Cole’s first run allowed since returning.
“Impressive swing,” Cole said. “He was able to beat it to the spot and lift it in the air. The pitch was out of the strike zone, and we’d thrown some fastballs up and away before that, but clearly he put a better swing on a good pitch.”
Rhys Hoskins launched a two-run homer to left field in the fourth inning off a Cole slider. Cole permitted four runs and six hits, throwing 83 pitches (56 for strikes).
“The long ball was the difference tonight,” Boone said.
Walking one and striking out two, Cole still gleaned positives within his outing – a reversal from his postgame remarks last week in Kansas City, where he dissected the flaws in a scoreless outing.
“The command stayed really sharp, and I continued to push through jams late in the game,” Cole said. “I really liked a lot of the efficient outs. I really liked a lot of the stuff we threw. We were really executing pitches to all nine [hitters].”
Following Cole’s exit, Fernando Cruz recorded four outs in relief to keep the score close, and Cody Bellinger’s sixth-inning sacrifice fly drew the Yankees within a run.
Hoskins picked up an eighth-inning RBI facing Paul Blackburn, and Cade Smith notched his 21st save despite a Bellinger sac fly in the ninth.
“Take your hats off to them; they took some good swings and beat us,” Chisholm said.