LIer Anthony Kay unable to hold off Yankees as White Sox lose
Yankees starting pitcher Gerrit Cole catches a pop-up with his bare hand during a game against the White Sox on Tuesday in Chicago. Credit: AP/Paul Beaty
CHICAGO — On the eve of what would be his second career start against the team he grew up rooting for, Ward Melville High School product Anthony Kay acknowledged he would feel “maybe a little bit” more juice with Gerrit Cole opposing him.
“You know when you have a pitcher like that on the other side, it’s probably going to be a low-scoring game,” Kay, a White Sox lefthander, said on Monday. “Definitely fires you up a little bit more.”
Kay came out firing Tuesday night, striking out Paul Goldschmidt, Ben Rice and Amed Rosario in a dominant 15-pitch first inning.
But the Yankees tagged him for three runs in the second inning and, while Kay allowed no further damage, that was more than enough for Cole.
And just enough for the Yankees.
The righthander scattered four hits across six innings in which he struck out seven, leading the Yankees to a 3-2 victory in front of 33,743 at Rate Field.
Kay fell to 7-5 with a 4.25 ERA after allowing those three runs, five hits and a walk over 5 1/3 innings in which he struck out seven.
Anthony Volpe’s RBI double and Max Schuemann’s two-run double in the third made it 3-0 and the Yankees (61-46), who have won 11 of their last 15, survived closer David Bednar allowing his first run since May 22 on a two-out homer in the ninth by Chase Meidroth.
Cole, who walked two, improved to 4-5, 3.57 ERA in 12 starts.
His lone inning of trouble was a 32-pitch bottom of the fourth in which he loaded the bases with two outs, but he got Tristan Peters to pop out to end the threat.
Cole’s most entertaining inning was the second, which featured a leadoff pop up by Colson Montgomery between the plate and mound. Cole called off catcher Austin Wells, who ended up banging into the pitcher. Cole, stumbling back, saw the ball pop out of his glove before securing the catch with his bare pitching hand. He then pointed toward Wells as an NFL receiver might at a defensive back, feeling he had been the victim of pass interference.
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.
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