<\/p>\n
KANSAS CITY, Mo. \u2014 The Yankees\u2019 Gerrit Cole<\/a> was quick to point out that his second straight dominant start in his long-awaited return from Tommy John surgery was just that: his second start.<\/p>\n \u201cSmall sample size,\u201d the former Cy Young winner said.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n What a sample, though.<\/p>\n After allowing two hits over six scoreless innings against Tampa Bay in his first major league start since Game 5 of the 2024 World Series against the Dodgers<\/a>, the 35-year-old Cole did even better against struggling Kansas City. He allowed four hits while striking out 10 without a single walk, sending the Yankees to a 7-0 victory \u2014 their 14th straight win over the Royals.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel like maybe the first game was the appetizer,\u201d Yankees manager Aaron Boone said, \u201cand that was the main course right there. That was surgical. You saw everything, like, good fastball, both breaking balls going, mixed in the cutter a little bit, made some really good change-ups along the way. There was good defensive plays behind him early and then he kind of cruised.\u201d<\/p>\n Cole (1-0) needed only 79 pitches to get through 6 2\/3 innings, and he probably could have gone deeper into the game against Kansas City. But at this point in what the Yankees hope is a long season, there was no reason to push Cole\u2019s once-ailing right elbow.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n The closest the Royals came to scoring off him came in the third, when Michael Massey<\/a> hit a one-out double. Cole bounced back to strike out Isaac Collins<\/a>, bringing Maikel Garcia<\/a> to the plate. He ripped a single to right field, Aaron Judge<\/a> fielded a tough hop cleanly, and then made a perfect throw to catch Massey at the plate for the final out of the inning.<\/p>\n Cole also stranded Garcia at second base after a two-out double in the sixth. Salvador Perez<\/a> singled off him in the seventh.<\/p>\n And that was it. All the runners Kansas City managed against him.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it just reminds you of who he is, and how great a consistent pitcher he is,\u201d Boone said. \u201cAnd to see him go through the process the last several months to get back to this, and go out there and execute like he is here to start, it\u2019s fun to watch.\u201d<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Cole brutally was efficient, especially with his 96 mph fastball. He threw first-pitch strikes to 16 of the 23 batters he faced, and only a couple of batters even managed to drive the count to three balls against him the entire night.<\/p>\n \u201cI expect to execute pitches. I don\u2019t necessarily expect to not give up any runs, especially on 75% strikes. You\u2019re putting a lot of pressure on guys,\u201d Cole said. \u201cSo you have to play good defense, which is what we did tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n There was pressure on Cole to execute, too, because the Yankees never really gave him a cushion. They managed a pair of runs on a single by Paul Goldschmidt<\/a>, a triple by Ben Rice<\/a> and Judge\u2019s sacrifice fly, but the rest of their offense came after Cole departed.<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t nearly as prolific as the Yankees\u2019 memorable 15-1 win in which they belted six homers and had 24 hits \u2014 and, in a first for one of the game\u2019s historic franchises, every player in the New York starting lineup had at least two hits.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n But with Cole back on the mound, they only needed a fraction of that offense in the series finale.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s two games. Small sample size,\u201d Cole said. \u201cWe still have stuff to improve, and just have to keep the same mindset that we have right now, and that\u2019s to take it one outing at a time.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source sports.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" KANSAS CITY, Mo. \u2014 The Yankees\u2019 Gerrit Cole was quick to point out that his second straight dominant start in his long-awaited return from Tommy John surgery was just that: his second start. \u201cSmall sample size,\u201d the former Cy Young winner said. Advertisement What a sample, though. After allowing two hits over six scoreless innings […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2436491,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[462833,350142,377375,345065,463367,424369,310650,313842,313843,386019,77699,478237,336209,477520,441877],"class_list":["post-2436490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty","tag-aaron-boone","tag-aaron-judge","tag-ben-rice","tag-dodgers","tag-gerrit-cole","tag-isaac-collins","tag-kansas-city","tag-maikel-garcia","tag-michael-massey","tag-paul-goldschmidt","tag-salvador-perez","tag-sample-size","tag-scoreless-innings","tag-the-yankees","tag-tommy-john-surgery"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Gerrit-Cole-dazzles-again-in-his-second-start-back-sending.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2436490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2436490"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2436490\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2436492,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2436490\/revisions\/2436492"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2436491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2436490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2436490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2436490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}