Yankees' Gerrit Cole allows four home runs in two innings in loss to Tigers

LAKELAND, Fla. — Every pitcher has days like this.

Gerrit Cole in recent years just has had far fewer than most.

But on a day his pitches — the fastball especially — didn’t do much of anything in the way of movement, Cole got hammered by the Tigers on a windy Thursday afternoon in a 15-11 loss at Publix Field.

Cole, unscored on his first two spring starts, allowed four home runs — back-to-back shots by Travis Demeritte and Miguel Cabrera in the first and second innings — part of a two-inning outing in which the righthander allowed six runs and six hits. The teams, it should be noted, combined to hit 11 homers — nine by the Tigers — as a constant gale blew out to center all day.

“It’s not my favorite day of 2020 so far,” Cole said with a slight smile, though not using the wind as an excuse. “But it is just spring training.”

A time of year when all isn’t necessarily as it seems. Many veteran pitchers, for example, come into games wanting to work on something specific and not sweat the results. Cole’s focus on Thursday was his fastball. The velocity on that pitch, incidentally, was just fine, peaking at 99 mph.

“I don’t want to say we’re going through the motions out there, we’re competing, but there are some other things that are important like, if you throw a bad fastball, you want to throw a good one on the next one,” Cole said.

Take the second inning, for instance. Demeritte, who hit a slider out in the first inning, crushed a fastball out for his second homer.

Cabrera, who launched a first-pitch fastball to dead center in the first to complete the back-to-back with Demeritte, no doubt was fastball hunting again in the second and hit it out.  

“I was like, ‘Screw it, let’s just try to execute it again,’ ” Cole said. “Moved the ball up and in on Miggy and just got punished for it again. So you just take it for what it is. We’ll learn from it and get better.”

Cole’s routine was disrupted a bit earlier in the week as he was sick Monday with a fever — no, neither he nor the Yankees at any point though he had the coronavirus — but said he felt fine Thursday.

“I felt good to go,” Cole said. “I felt good but I think the fastball life was a bit inconsistent from what Gary [Sanchez] and I were talking about. There were some better options to go to but I kind of wanted to get it right.”

By Erik Boland

erik.boland@newsday.comeboland11

Erik Boland started in Newsday's sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.