Yankees' winning streak hits nine with another victory over Twins

Can’t win ‘em all?

When the Twins are in the opposing dugout, the Yankees sure seem to.

They extended their season-best winning streak to nine games Saturday afternoon, coasting to a 7-1 victory over the Twins in front of 35,247 at the Stadium. That lifted them to 108-38 against Minnesota, including the postseason, since 2002.

Gerrit Cole, backed by two-run doubles by Giancarlo Stanton and Luke Voit in a five-run fifth inning and Andrew Velazquez’s first major-league homer, pitched six scoreless innings, escaping a pair of jams.

The Yankees (72-52) remained four games behind AL East-leading Tampa Bay (two games ahead of Oakland in the battle for the first wild card) and won for the 21st time in 26 games. Since falling to 41-41, they have gone 31-11.

"I feel like even in our darkest moments, we felt we were better than what our record was," said Cole, who allowed five hits and one walk in improving to 12-6 with a 2.92 ERA. "[But] there’s still some work left to be done."

Voit, coming off a 4-for-5, four-RBI night Friday, went 2-for-4 and is 13-for-26 with 13 RBIs in his last seven games.

Tyler Wade, who has 17 hits in his last 40 at-bats, slashed a two-out single to left in the second to drive in the Yankees’ first run and doubled to begin the fifth-inning rally before scoring on a wild pitch.

"The biggest factor has been wearing down the opposing pitcher," Stanton said of the offense’s string of success. "If we have a lot of guys not chasing out of the zone . . .we’re just going to make him make more mistakes."

Cole stranded runners at second and third in the second inning, getting Willians Astudillo to pop to first.

With the Yankees leading 1-0 in the fifth, Astudillo and Andrelton Simmons singled and Max Kepler walked to load the bases with one out. But Cole struck out Jorge Polanco swinging at a high 99-mph fastball and caught Josh Donaldson looking at a 91-mph changeup that was down in the zone.

"Used all four pitches to our advantage," Cole said. "Wish I could have just located a little bit better in a couple of situations."

Donaldson created a stir in early June when he mentioned Cole among the pitchers who might be most affected by MLB’s decision to start cracking down on the use of sticky substances on baseballs. Since making those comments, Donaldson has gone 0-for-6 with four strikeouts against Cole.

That gave the Yankees a lift, and with one out in the bottom of the inning, Wade blooped a double to left and went to third on DJ LeMahieu’s single to right. Anthony Rizzo was hit by a pitch, loading the bases for Aaron Judge. He got ahead 2-and-0 before Kenta Maeda’s wild pitch made it 2-0 and advanced the other two runners. Judge then walked to re-load the bases, this time for Stanton.

With the count 1-and-0, Twins manager Rocco Baldelli went to the mound with a trainer to evaluate his pitcher and Maeda soon was walking off the mound, replaced by righty Edgar Garcia. The Twins said Maeda left with right forearm tightness.

Stanton greeted the new pitcher with a two-run double into the leftfield corner, and after Judge was thrown out at the plate on Rougned Odor’s grounder to second, Voit laced a two-run double into the leftfield corner to make it 6-0.

The Twins did not score until Polanco’s homer in the eighth off Lucas Luetge made it 6-1.

The Bronx-born Velazquez (Fordham Prep) had plenty of family members in the stands, and he brought some of them to tears in the eighth with a no-doubter of a home run to rightfield to make it 7-1. In his last four games, he has a pair of two-hit games, his first MLB homer and four RBIs.

"It’s a lot of fun," Voit said. "This lineup is clicking, and the boys are rolling."