One frustrating inning dooms Gerrit Cole, Yankees
Gerrit Cole of the Yankees looks on during a video review in the fifth inning against the Blue Jays at Yankee Stadium on Saturday. Credit: Jim McIsaac
Aaron Boone said he expects the Yankees to be angry — he used more colorful language than that — about the way they are playing.
Gerrit Cole obliged on Saturday, twice punching the dugout roof with both hands after giving up four runs to Toronto in the fifth inning after throwing no-hit ball for the first 4 1/3.
That’s probably not what Boone had in mind.
Those four runs decided the game as the Blue Jays beat the Yankees, 5-2, at Yankee Stadium.
Cole (9-6, 3.41 ERA) allowed a pair of two-run doubles in the fateful fifth, one to No. 9 hitter Jackie Bradley Jr. that gave Toronto a 2-1 lead and another to Alejandro Kirk that made it 4-1.
There also was a replay review, a defensive mistake by Cole and an unfortunate walk that harmed the righthander in the inning.
“It’s a tough one to . . . it’s a frustrating one,” said Cole, who allowed four runs and five hits in six innings with two walks and five strikeouts. All of the hits came in a six-batter span in the fifth.
Toronto’s first hit of the day was a double off the base of the leftfield wall by Santiago Espinal.
Cole, who had walked one and hit one batter to that point, walked No. 8 hitter Danny Jansen, who is hitting .197, on five pitches. Bradley followed with a go-ahead two-run double into the leftfield corner that eluded Andrew Benintendi’s Spider-Man-like leaping try at the wall.
Raimel Tapia beat out a slow bouncer to short for a single and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. banged a potential inning-ending double-play ball Cole’s way, but he knocked it down instead of catching it, slipped and threw a lollipop to first base. Guerrero was called out, but he spread his arms wide soon after crossing first base to indicate his belief that he was safe. The Blue Jays challenged the call and the replay umpires agreed. Guerrero was credited with a single to load the bases.
“I threw a great slider,” Cole said. “Fell off the mound a little bit more than I usually do. Obviously, I’m thinking double play. I’m not 100% sure, but I’ve got to at least give it a look. That was my mindset. I had to get back all the way around the mound. I kicked it and trying to regroup and go to first, I had too much momentum going back to the ball to not slip.”
Kirk unloaded the bases with a drive to left-center that eluded a diving Benintendi. One run scored easily, the other one not so easily, the third one not at all.
Tapia, the runner on second, held up a bit to see if the ball was going to be caught. When it was not, he started rounding the bases with Guerrero — the runner from first — hot on his tail.
The relay throw home from Isiah Kiner-Falefa arrived a little late to get Tapia, but it was in time to get Guerrero as catcher Jose Trevino applied the tag on the second runner for the second out of the inning.
“Just a couple things that kind of snowballed there,” said Boone, who showed his anger by slamming his hand on the table while answering a postgame question. “Frustrating inning there . . . A little bit of a weird inning, some of it of his own doing.”
Cole concurred.
“In terms of what I feel like right now,” he said, “I feel like I shouldn’t have freaking walked Jansen and I should have made that freaking play.”
Cole hasn't won since July 17, going 0-4 with a 4.62 ERA in six games.
The closeness of the runners at home brought to mind an infamous play from 1985 in which two Yankees baserunners (Bobby Meacham and Dale Berra) were tagged out by White Sox catcher Carlton Fisk on the same throw home.
''I've never seen a play like that in grammar school, let alone the major leagues,'' then-Yankees manager Billy Martin said at the time.
He was angry, too.
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.
