September 29, 2023 - BY Admin

Yankees takeaways from Wednesday's 6-0 win over Blue Jays, including Gerrit Cole's shutout

Gerrit Cole capped off his Cy Young-caliber season with a shutout as the Yankees beat the Blue Jays, 6-0, in Toronto on Wednesday night.


Here are the takeaways…

- Cole, in his 300th career start and the front-runner for the AL Cy Young this season, cruised through the first five innings against a vaunted Blue Jays lineup. The only trouble he got into in the early going was giving up a leadoff double to Brandon Belt in the second inning but stranded him at third base to keep the game scoreless.


The Yankees ace continued to cruise, going the first eight innings on just 93 pitches (63 strikes) while giving up two hits. He'd go back out for the ninth looking for his second complete game of the season. He struck out Kevin Kiermaier with a 97 mph fastball, got George Springer to line out to second base on one pitch and Bo Bichette to ground out to end the game.


Cole's final line: 9 IP (105 pitches), two hits, five strikeouts.


- As for the Yankees offense, they would finally break through in the fourth inning. Aaron Judge hit a Jose Berrios first-pitch sinker that didn’t for a two-run blast to give the Yanks a 2-0 lead. It was Judge’s 36th home run and his fourth career longball against Berrios. That’s tied for the most home runs Judge has hit a homer off of. Berrios is now tied with Marcus Stroman, Taijuan Walker and Tyler Wells.


The Yankees would get two more in the fifth inning from an unlikely source. Giancarlo Stanton made Berrios pay for walking Judge and Gleyber Torres to load the bases with two outs. The slugger would hit a single to score two before Torres was put out when he took too wide of a turn around third base.


Judge wasn’t done, though. In the seventh, he planted an 82 mph changeup from Trevor Richards over the right-field wall with a man on for his 37th homer to give the Yanks a 6-0 lead. Wednesday was Judge’s seventh multi-homer game this season, second most in MLB. The only player with more is Matt Olson (8).


Judge would get another at-bat with two outs in the ninth inning but he would walk on four straight balls. The slugger finished 2-for-3 with two walks.


The Yankees had nine total hits, and everyone in the lineup aside from Oswaldo Cabrera and Oswald Peraza -- who had a walk -- had at least one hit.


Highlights

What’s Next

The Yankees complete their three-game series with the Blue Jays on Thursday night. First pitch is scheduled for 7:07 p.m.


The Yankees will send Luke Weaver (3-5, 6.47 ERA). He will be opposed by RHP Chris Bassitt (15-8, 3.74 ERA).