Gerrit Cole surrendered three home runs as the New York Yankees lost 5-4 to the Cleveland Guardians at Yankee Stadium on June 4. The defeat marked one of the first difficult outings for Cole this season, coming after a scoreless streak since his return from Tommy John surgery.
Cole reviewed video of a four-seam fastball that José RamÃrez hit for a home run, confirming his initial suspicion about its location. “He’s a Hall of Famer,” Cole said. “He’s got incredibly quick hands and great barrel accuracy, so he can reach both sides of the plate, up and down. I guess the pitch could be a little bit better, but nevertheless it wasn’t good enough.” RamÃrez finished with three hits on the night and has had consistent success against Cole throughout their careers.
Yankees manager Aaron Boone commented on RamÃrez’s performance, “I just look at him as such a great player. As an opponent, I don’t love seeing him come up in big spots.” With Aaron Judge out for a second straight game due to a bone bruise in his right rib cage, the Yankees missed an opportunity to tie with the Rays atop the American League East standings.
The team has struggled recently against opponents with winning records, losing 10 of their last 13 games in such matchups. Jazz Chisholm Jr. said, “They’ve been playing pretty good baseball, putting the ball in play against really good pitchers… They’ve been going out there and attacking our pitchers, taking all the right pitches and swinging at all the right ones as well.” Chisholm and José Caballero each hit solo home runs early in Wednesday’s game.
Kyle Manzardo homered off Cole’s knuckle-curve for Cleveland’s first run against him this season. Rhys Hoskins added a two-run homer later off another pitch from Cole. Boone said after the game, “The long ball was the difference tonight.” Despite allowing four runs over six hits with one walk and two strikeouts across 83 pitches (56 strikes), Cole found positives: “The command stayed really sharp… I continued to push through jams late in the game… We were really executing pitches to all nine [hitters].”
Fernando Cruz provided relief following Cole’s exit while Cody Bellinger contributed sacrifice flies that kept New York within reach late into the contest.
