For much of the time Gerrit Cole has been back in the Yankees rotation after recovering from Tommy John surgery, the team had been clicking.
Now, they’re still without Aaron Judge in the lineup and Carlos Rodón has joined Max Fried on the IL.
And then there’s the seven-game losing streak they dragged into Friday night.
Not surprisingly, then, Cole was less concerned about whether he had pitched his best or been at his sharpest as against Minnesota, with the team trying to right itself.
“Screw coming back,” Cole said of what his performance — five innings of two-run ball, while pitching through a nearly one-hour rain delay — meant personally. “We needed this win today. … You’ve got to do hard stuff in this league sometimes. Sometimes it’s not fun. It’s not fun to sit around for an hour and 20 minutes, throwing bullpens, but it’s what was needed. We needed a little bit more tonight and thankfully, we got it done.”
In a 5-2 win over Minnesota, Cole, making his eighth start back since undergoing Tommy John surgery nearly a year and a half ago, willed his way through five innings.
The game was stopped by an oncoming storm as soon as Cole struck out Brooks Lee to end the top of the third.
The right-hander — after the game was stopped for 53 minutes — stayed in the game for two more innings.
He said he threw four simulated innings of about eight-to-15 pitches every 10 minutes during the delay and Aaron Boone said he listened to his ace and “the pitching guys” in opting to let Cole continue in the fourth.
Cole allowed two hits and a run in the fourth and Boone intended to pull him following that inning — with the Yankees up by one run and Cole at 78 pitches.
“He definitely was going to take me out and I definitely wasn’t coming out,” Cole said.
As Boone added, Cole, “was not having it, which was great.”
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He allowed a one-out double down the left field line to Luke Keaschall, but got Trevor Larnach and Lee to get out of the inning.
“I was pumped to see him go back out there and go through top of order,” Boone said. “Once he fought for it, it was his. He finished strong.”
The results weren’t dominant, though seven strikeouts and no walks were encouraging and an improvement over most of his previous four outings- and certainly the two that led up to this one.
Cole, still finding his stuff after missing all of 2025 and nearly the first two months of this one following Tommy John surgery, had allowed nine runs in just 9 ²/₃ innings in his last two starts and had a 6.12 ERA in four appearances after starting his comeback with consecutive scoreless outings.
On Friday, he went back to his four-seam fastball more than he did early in Boston in his last outing and had good results.
He did allow four extra-base hits over the five innings, but with rookie Brendan Beck starting Saturday in place of Rodón, every out Cole could get was valuable.
