Dating back to Corey Kluber’s no-hitter on Wednesday, the Yankees came into Saturday’s contest against the White Sox with 23 straight scoreless innings pitched.
Gerrit Cole extended that streak to 30 innings with a seven-inning outing in which he walked three batters for the first time all season, but managed to find his command as the game as went on.
“I thought we had some good pitch selection early, even though I wasn’t quite as sharp as I wanted to be,” Cole said. I made some good pitches to get some ground balls, and then we just settled in. A little more concise and efficient through the delivery, and some other good stuff started showing up.”
“It’s just a testament to how good he is at his craft,” manager Aaron Boone said of Cole. “He made some really good adjustments early on in the game, started working the middle of the zone with his heater. I thought his curveball was there from jump street, and then he really started dotting some sliders. He brought the changeup along, and then really finished strong in the seventh inning.”
Cole said once he was able to start hitting the corners consistently, as he did later in the game, he and Kyle Higashioka got into better pitch sequences in which they could attack hitters. The exclamation point of his outing came on his 95th and final pitch of the game, a 102 mph fastball to catch Andrew Vaughn looking.
“Once we started making our pitches, we could really let loose on some fastballs at the end there,” Cole said with a chuckle.
Though the Yankees starters have been lights out over the past five games, Boone says you can go back even longer to find where they started to turn things around as a unit.
“They’ve been terrific,” Boone said. “Obviously this run they’re on right now is really impressive. I think you can go back further towards the beginning of the month. They’ve been strong and been tone-setters for this team, and it was no different with Gerrit today.”
“Everybody’s been feeling good since the day we got here,” Cole said. “I understand the questions were there, but on a day-to-day basis, everybody’s been ready to do their jobs. It’s been really fun to watch.”