DENVER — Gerrit Cole made Yankees history on Sunday, but the Rockies spoiled the afternoon and the Bombers’ shot at starting the second half with a series win with several late homers.
C.J. Cron’s grand slam in the eighth came off Clay Holmes, who inherited a mess from Tommy Kahnle. The blow — the first homer Holmes has allowed this year — helped the basement-dwelling Rockies secure an 8-7 win over the Yankees. While the Yankees remain within striking distance of a wild card spot, they are now at the bottom of the American League East again.
“It’s a spot in the ballgame there where we need a big out,” Holmes said, “and unfortunately, the sinker stayed up and I couldn’t get that out.”
The Yankees tied things up in the ninth thanks to a Ryan McMahon throwing error and a Harrison Bader sac fly, but Oswald Peraza got thrown out trying to take third on the latter play, which ended the Yankees’ rally. The 10th inning featured out on the bases from the Yankees, as Bader, the automatic runner on second base, got thrown out at third following a chopper to the mound.
“Look, you don’t want to make the third out at third,” Boone said when asked about Peraza’s play. “It was vacated. I think he saw the unoccupied base there. They did a good job of making a throw on the run to get him there. You can’t really kill the aggression there, especially when he saw it open. They made a play against him.”
A few RBI singles from Oswaldo Cabrera and Peraza helped the Yankees retake the lead in the 11th, but Nolan Jones then blasted a two-run homer off Nick Ramirez. The Rockies then walked it off in the same inning when Alan Trejo launched a solo shot off Ron Marinaccio (4-5), thus completing a meltdown for a Yankees bullpen that’s mostly been stellar this season.
“Our bullpen’s been really good all year,” Holmes said. “To let one game kind of sway your confidence, it’s just not a good judgment there. I think that we’ll bounce back, and I trust the guys that we have down there. I know we can make pitches and get big outs, and, unfortunately today, we gave up a few homers there late in the game, which is uncharacteristic. But like I said, we’ve been really good all year, and I don’t think that’s gonna change.”
Well before the implosions, Cole — pitching for the first time since starting the All-Star Game on July 11 — struck out 11 Rockies. In doing so, he logged his 24th double-digit strikeout game with the Yankees, surpassing Ron Guidry for first place on the franchise’s all-time list.
Cole has recorded three such games in his fourth season with the Yankees.
“It’s hard to comprehend to be honest,” Cole said of outdoing Guidry. “I mean, he’s one of the all-time Yankee greats. Anytime you’re mentioned with him in a sentence or blessed enough to pass something that he set, I guess it’s just a humbling experience. It’s a humbling moment. I have a lot of gratitude.”
Cole only permitted two hits and one earned run — a first inning homer to Michael Toglia — and one walk over 102 pitches while icing the Rockies. When he left the mound for the final time after the sixth inning, he received a loud ovation from the Coors Field crowd, which featured its fair share of Yankees fans during the series.
The Yankees’ offense gave those fans less to cheer about in the early innings, as Rockies starter Chase Anderson blanked the team for five frames despite waking up with a 6.89 ERA. The Yankees only managed three hits off the journeyman righty, but they got on the board once Anderson departed.
The Bombers scored their first run in the sixth when Isiah Kiner-Falefa singled to center off Jake Bird. An initial throwing error by McMahon gave the Yankees a second run on the play.
Kiner-Falefa, meanwhile, scored when Anthony Volpe softly grounded out to shortstop Ezequiel Tovar. Tovar, playing in, motioned a throw to the plate as Kiner-Falefa broke on contact, but he bobbled the ball and had to settle for the out at first.
With Sunday’s defeat, the Yankees failed to win a series against a 36-win Rockies team with a staff ERA as elevated as the city of Denver. Boone, however, didn’t want to hear about how lousy the Rockies are when asked about that and the Yankees’ repeated insistence that they’re a championship-caliber squad.
“It’s baseball. Major League Baseball. Save it with that question,” Boone said when told the Yankees lost 2-of-3 to the National League’s worst team. “We got two and a half months to put ourselves in a position to be championship-caliber. We got to go. It’s on us. We got to go prove that. As far as who we’re playing — Major League Baseball. You’re going to beat some good teams. You’re gonna lose some series to teams that are struggling. It’s a grind every time you go out there and put a Major League Baseball uniform on. I don’t buy into that garbage at all. They outlasted us today. We’re obviously pissed off in the moment that we lost a series, but it’s a series we lost and we got to move on from it and go try and play well in California.”
With the Rockies in their rearview, the Yankees will turn their attention toward Shohei Ohtani and the Angels.
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Source: Berkshire mont