Aaron Judge hits two more homers but Gerrit Cole takes first loss

Aaron Judge continued doing what he’s done pretty much all season to opposing pitchers.

Gerrit Cole, however, saw his string of terrific outings end at five.

And even on a night when Judge homered twice to give him an MLB-high 17, the latter was enough to hand the Yankees their fourth loss in the last five games as they fell to the Orioles, 6-4, on Monday night in front of 32,187 at the Stadium.

The Yankees (29-13), swept by the White Sox in Sunday’s doubleheader, lost a third straight game for the first time this season. Entering that doubleheader, they had won 22 of 26.

“Little bit of adversity for sure,” Cole said, referencing the three players placed on the COVID-19 injured list in two days and losing bullpen standout Chad Green for the season. “Obviously, a tough stretch right now with the amount of games, the doubleheaders, some of the uncontrollable injuries that kind of crept up on us. But a.) nobody’s going to feel sorry for us, b.) everybody goes through patches like this. It could get turned around tomorrow, it could get turned around next week, but as players, you just stay in the middle, take the good with the bad and try to improve from it any way you can.”

Cole, who came in 4-0 with a 2.89 ERA — including 4-0 with a 1.67 ERA in his previous five starts, in which he struck out 39 in 32 1⁄3 innings — allowed a season-high five runs and seven hits in a season-high eight innings. In an outing Aaron Boone characterized as “weird” and Cole characterized as “peculiar,” he did not walk a batter and struck out a season-high 11.

He ultimately was undone by a four-run third in which the Orioles (18-25) had five of their nine total hits, and by Ramon Urias’ two-out homer to rightfield in the sixth that gave Baltimore a 5-4 lead (Wandy Peralta allowed a run in the ninth to make it 6-4).

“That inning is just a little tough to digest,” Cole said. “Definitely a lot of credit to them. Certainly Urias had a fantastic night. Hits two fastballs outside the strike zone and slugs them both.”

Judge had tied it in the bottom of the fifth with a 405-foot two-run homer to left off Orioles starter Jordan Lyles, four innings after hitting a 418-foot solo shot into the Orioles’ bullpen. It was his fourth multi-homer game of the season and the 20th of his career.

Judge was serenaded with “MVP! MVP!” chants as he made his way back into the dugout after the first homer. The second one gave him seven in his last 11 games, 13 in his last 22 and 16 in his last 27.

In Judge’s last 22 games, he has driven in three runs six times and knocked in four runs twice. In his last 27 games, he is hitting .356 with 32 of his 34 RBIs.  “He’s a really special player and obviously really carrying us offensively right now,” Boone said.

Aaron Hicks led off the second with a walk and Estevan Florial, getting the start in center, hit a grounder to first. Ryan Mountcastle made a good enough throw to Chris Owings, but the ball glanced off the shortstop’s glove, and the error allowed Hicks to take third. Jose Trevino sent a sharp single back up the middle to make it 2-0.

The Orioles’ offense kicked into gear in the third with five hits in a span of six batters: doubles by Urias and Robinson Chirinos and one-out singles by Cedric Mullins, Austin Hays and Trey Mancini. That gave Baltimore a 4-2 lead.

“You’re always just trying to get better, and that’s unfortunate, but there’s really seven really nice innings,” Cole said of the outing. “Tough. The natural instinct is not to brush it off, right, because it’s kind of a brutal result, an undesirable result. But at the same time, we know we’re sitting here really, in terms of what we can control, frustrated about less than a handful of pitches.”