#Yankees roll Phillies as Gerrit Cole approaches history

Gerrit Cole was good but not overpowering in his initial game wearing Yankee pinstripes. For the first time in six games Aaron Judge didn’t hit a ball into a sea of empty seats.

Yet, Cole had enough to limit the Phillies to a run in six innings and Gio Urshela, DJ LeMahieu and Brett Gardner delivered homers to carry the Yankees to a 6-3 victory at Yankee Stadium. The win stretched their winning streak to seven games and improved the best record in baseball to 8-1.

Cole won his 19th straight game, which is sixth on the all-time list. Carl Hubbell’s 24 in a row is the all-time mark and Roy Face is second at 22. Phillies starter Jake Arrieta is tied for third with Roger Clemens and Rube Marquard at 20.

Judge did single and double and scored a run.

The Phillies played their first game since July 26 after hosting the Marlins, who had several players infected with COVID-19 during a weekend series.

When Gardner made the final out of the sixth inning, the sky opened a flood of rain and the game was stopped for 1 hour and 7 minutes. Brooks Kriske replaced Cole for the start of the seventh.

In six innings Cole gave up a run on Jay Bruce’s third-inning homer, allowed five hits and whiffed four. He has won all three starts for the team he grew up rooting for in Southern California and two have involved rain. Cole’s Opening Day start in Washington was called after 5 ¹/₃ innings.

Cole retired the first six Phillies hitters but had at least one base runner in each of the next three frames.

Bruce, the No. 7 hitter, opened the third with his home run to right which was followed by an Andrew McCutchen single in front of Cole striking out Rhys Hoskins.

The Yankees started the game tied with the Dodgers for the major league lead in homers with 17 and quickly pushed that to 19.

LeMahieu and Gardner hit solo homers off Arrieta in the first and third innings, respectively, and Urshela, who made several outstanding plays at third and started a rally-killing 5-4-3 double play to end the fourth, hit a three-run homer off Deolis Guerra in the sixth that made it 6-1.

Arrieta gave up three runs and seven hits in five innings in his first start of the year.

Kriske injected a dose of stress into the evening by walking the first two batters after play resumed. When Kriske gave up a one-out RBI single to No. 9 hitter Adam Haseley he was replaced by Chad Green with the score, 6-2, runners on first and second, one out and the top of the Phillies lineup on the way up.

Green moved the runners up a base each with a wild pitch before striking out McCutchen with a 1-2 breaking ball. Green jumped ahead of Hoskins, 0-2, and struck him out with an off-speed pitch in the dirt with Bryce Harper on deck. Seven of Green’s eight pitches were strikes.

The Phillies cut the deficit to 6-3 in the eighth against lefty Luis Avilan. Zack Britton recorded the final three outs for his fourth save in as many chances.