CLEVELAND — On a night when the Yankees wanted Gerrit Cole to pitch like an ace and pick up an overtaxed and short-handed bullpen, the opposite happened.
But a win’s a win.
Five relievers combined to throw five scoreless innings behind Cole, and Jazz Chisholm Jr. hit a tiebreaking eighth-inning home run to lift the Yankees to a 3-2 victory against the Guardians in front of 27,154 at Progressive Field on Tuesday night.
Cole wasn’t sharp at the wrong time, given that the Yankees burned through seven relievers Monday in a 10-inning win.
There was double-barreled action in the bullpen during the fourth, which Cole escaped unscathed on his 83rd and final pitch.
Making his fourth start after Tommy John surgery and his second straight against Cleveland, Cole ran out of gas after allowing two runs on two walks and five hits — all singles, including one that was about a foot from clearing the 19-foot wall in left field — while striking out four.
But Paul Blackburn, Tim Hill, Camilo Doval (2-0), Jake Bird and Fernando Cruz came to the rescue, even though all but Cruz were pitching for at least the second straight game.
Blackburn tagged out a runner steps from home plate on a failed squeeze bunt.
With David Bednar unavailable after throwing 38 total pitches over back-to-back games, Cruz recorded the final five outs for his first save.
His biggest out was inducing a fly ball to center field from slugger José Ramírez with two on and two out to end the eighth.
Then Cruz struck out the side in the ninth.
“He may not have one in the column, but he’s saved our bacon a bunch of times this year,” manager Aaron Boone said before the game. “He’s put out so many fires for us in the biggest moments of the game.”
With the score tied 2-2, the Guardians kept Tim Herrin in the game after his scoreless seventh specifically to pitch lefty-on-lefty to Chisholm, who launched a full-count pitch into the right field seats.
Chisholm didn’t leave the batter’s box until the ball descended 360 feet away and was booed as he rounded third base.
It was the second Yankees long ball of the game.
Spencer Jones hit his first career home run in his 33rd at-bat to provide a 2-0 second-inning lead.
The No. 6 prospect in the organization also singled to continue a promising four-game stretch since his second call-up.
The Guardians tied the score at 2-2 and left the bases loaded in the third.
Chase DeLauter’s two-out RBI single ate up lightning-rod shortstop Anthony Volpe, who couldn’t keep the ball in the infield.
The 96 mph smash hopped right in front of Volpe as he shifted his body to the side and wound up on his butt.
Cole was booed after hitting Rhys Hoskins on the knuckles by coming up and in. Hoskins fell flat on his back — just six days after Hoskins homered off Cole.
Maybe Cole’s mind still was sidetracked because he was late covering first base — in shades of the 2024 World Series — after Angel Martínez hit a hard ground ball to first base that was stopped on a dive by Paul Goldschmidt.
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The costly delay resulted in a bang-bang RBI single, and the trainer visited the mound to check Cole after he slid barehand-first into the bag.
The shortened outing must have come as a surprise to Boone, who was optimistic before the game that Cole would bounce back from a loss to the Guardians last week.
“I feel like he’s recovered well each time,” Boone said. “He’s been really pitch efficient. His strike throwing has been really good. His first outing he relied on the fastball and used that well. The second outing I thought he kind of had everything working for him and was pretty dynamic. More of the same last time, but [the Guardians] were able to clip him a couple times.”
