Gerrit Cole dominates, his catcher Kyle Higashioka strokes two homers for win over Jays
DUNEDIN, Fla. — Gerrit Cole was clearly not comfortable Monday night. He stomped around the front of the mound at TD Bank Ballpark, toeing and tamping down the dirt several times through the first two innings, before walking to the back of the mound and scraping the bottom of his cleats on the rubber spikes there.
But it wasn’t the fussing that settled him in, but Kyle Higashioka.
After giving up a run and fighting to find his slider in the first two innings, the Yankees’ ace retired 15 straight batters. Higashioka gave him three runs on two homers as the Bombers beat the Blue Jays 3-1.
The Yankees (5-5) have won back-to-back games after dropping two out of three to the Rays over the weekend. The Blue Jays (4-6) took the first series of the season from the Yankees. They are playing in this renovated Class-A park, their spring training home, through May because of Canada’s strict coronavirus travel restrictions. It is the second straight season they will play their season outside of Canada as they will move back to Buffalo’s Sahlen Field, where they played last season, in June.
Cole, with the help of Higashioka, picked up his second win. He allowed one earned run on three hits. He walked one and struck out eight.
Cole kept fussing with the landing spot, which was nearly the same as Robbie Ray’s. The Blue Jays lefty managed to throw four no-hit innings on it before running out of steam in the fifth.
Rougned Odor busted up Rays’ no-hit bid with an infield single. Higashioka gave Cole a slim lead to work with in the fifth by driving in Odor in with a shot to right field. After Cole had gone, Higashioka hit his 12th career home run (his fifth homer against the Blue Jays) in the eighth to left field.
It was just Higashioka’s third career multi-home run game and his first homers of the season. The 30-year-old, who played travel baseball with Cole as a teenager, hit three homers against the Blue Jays Sept. 16, 2020. It was after that game when Cole joked he was Higashioka’s personal pitcher, instead of the other way around.
That power potential, and Gary Sanchez’s struggles at the plate last season, allowed the Yankees to pull the trigger and let Higashioka become Cole’s personal catcher.
The Yankees made that switch in September last year. Cole went 5-1 with a 1.79 ERA and a .165 batting average against in seven starts with Higashioka. In his first eight starts of 2020, with Sanchez behind the plate, Cole went 4-2 with a 3.91 ERA and a .224 opponents batting average.
So far this season, Sanchez has caught Cole once, on Opening Day. Cole allowed two runs on five hits, walked two and struck out eight in 5.1 innings in a loss to the Blue Jays. In the two starts since, with Higashioka behind the plate, Cole has a 0.69 ERA, allowing one earned run over 13 innings pitched. He’s walked one and struck out 21.
Still, Yankees manager Aaron Boone would not commit to Higashioka being Cole’s regular catcher. In fact, Boone had planned to start Sanchez Monday night until they played extra innings on Sunday.
“It was pretty much a four hour game behind the plate. It kind of took me out of having him catch today at this point in the season,” Boone said. “He’s gonna catch (Cole) down the road. Obviously I like when Higgy and Cole are together and it’s kind of a way to get Higgy in there.”
It certainly did not hurt as Cole was struggling to find his comfort zone.
Cole struggled to find his slider through the first two innings. He gave up back-to-back singles to Bo Bichette and Vladimir Guerrero, Jr. before the Blue Jays quickly got on the board with Randal Grichuk’s ground out. He walked Lourdes Gurriel, Jr. and gave up a single to Rowdy Tellez before seeming to find it. He retired the next 15 straight batters he faced.
In fact 20 straight Blue Jays hitters were sent back to the dugout before Marcus Semien singled off Darren O’Day in the bottom of the eighth. O’Day then issued a walk to Bichette and had to face the dangerous Guerrero with two on and two outs. He struck out the slugger to extend the Yankees’ bullpen streak to 12 scoreless innings. Aroldis Chapman gave up a hard-hit double to Grichuk to lead off the ninth, but he retired the next three to pick up his first save in his first opportunity of the season.
