Gerrit Cole beats Angels in his return from COVID-19 list

Gerrit Cole was crisp, sharp and efficient in his return from COVID-19 on Monday night against the Angels.

The only question was how many pitches manager Aaron Boone would allow his ace to throw in his first start since July 29.

The answer: 90.

With excellent bullpen help from an unusual cast of relievers, it was enough for Cole and the Yankees to take a 2-1 victory before 37,010 at Yankee Stadium.

"He’s an ace," Boone said. "He’s great at what he does."

Cole (11-6) allowed one run, two hits and a walk in 5 2⁄3 innings, striking out nine.

"That’s why he’s one of the best in the game," said Joey Gallo, who hit a bullet of a two-run homer into the second deck in rightfield in the first inning.

Said Cole: "I felt good out there. I’m pretty tired now, to be honest."

Zack Britton, Albert Abreu, Joely Rodriguez and Chad Green (fourth save) finished the three-hitter for the Yankees, who have won 25 of their last 36 games to move a season-high 14 games over .500. They are two games behind the Red Sox for the first wild card and 1 1⁄2 games behind the A’s for the second wild card, and they will host Boston in a split doubleheader on Tuesday.

Cole could have gone six full innings, but fill-in third baseman Rougned Odor booted a slow two-out grounder hit by Justin Upton for an error.

With lefthanded-hitting cleanup man Jared Walsh due up, Boone replaced Cole with struggling lefthander Britton, who struck out Walsh to end the inning.

Other than Cole’s pitch limit, the other intrigue in Monday’s makeup game from a July 1 rainout came when he faced MLB home run leader Shohei Ohtani.

Ohtani led off the sixth with a moonshot to right-center that got the fans out of their seats. It looked as if it might be his 40th homer, but Giancarlo Stanton caught the drive on the lip of the warning track.

Cole reacted on the mound as if he might have just given up a tying home run.

"He’s chasing my changeups four inches off the plate," he said. "I feel like maybe he’s lost a bit of awareness for the inside corner and then he just stands there like a telephone pole and spins on it. I’m like, ‘This guy, I just . . . ’ He just missed it. It was a decent pitch. Just missed it."

Cole threw a lot of pitches that were better than decent. His first pitch of the game was a 99-mph fastball that Ohtani swung through. On 2-and-2, Ohtani missed another 99-mph heater for strike three.

Cole struck out three in the first, but Upton got him for a two-out homer to left.

The Angels’ 1-0 lead lasted only until the bottom of the inning, when Gallo hit his fourth homer as a Yankee and 29th overall. The 412-foot rocket off lefthander Jose Suarez (5-6) left his bat at 112.1 mph.

With two outs in the fifth, the Angels’ Joe Adell sent a drive to right-center that Jonathan Davis ran down and caught on the warning track. Off the bat, it looked like a game-tying double.

"Obviously, he can really run," Boone said, "and it was apparent on that. Adell hit that ball well into the gap. Right when your eyes go to it, I thought he got a really good jump on the ball. You see the closing speed that he has, and he ran that ball down pretty easily."

Abreu, who picked up his first big-league save on Saturday, took over in the seventh and retired all five batters he faced with two strikeouts.

Rodriguez struck out Ohtani looking at an outside corner fastball for the final out of the eighth.

Green gave up an opposite-field single by Walsh with two outs in the ninth before striking out Phil Gosselin looking to end it.

"I definitely think that this could be like a springboard for us going forward," he said. "A lot of guys stepped up, threw some big innings tonight. That’s hopefully something that we can lean on moving forward. It’s no secret that we’ve struggled at times to close games out, to have clean innings, to get outs in big situations. But hopefully tonight’s that step in the right direction that we need."

The Yankees had a golden opportunity to expand their lead when Suarez walked the first three batters in the sixth. Angels manager Joe Maddon called in righthander Steve Cishek, who struck out Stanton and got Luke Voit to ground the next pitch into a 5-4-3 double play.

The first two Yankees reached in the eighth, but DJ LeMahieu was thrown out trying to steal third for the first out. Gallo struck out and Stanton hit a high (but not all that deep) fly ball to left.

By Anthony Rieber

anthony.rieber@newsday.comAnthonyRieber

Anthony Rieber covers baseball, as well as the NFL, NBA and NHL. He has worked at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998, and has been in his current position since July 5, 2004.