PHOENIX — Who needs Aaron Judge?
The Yankees do, of course, but they began life without him again on Friday night in encouraging fashion.
In a tribute to Judge, who has fueled much of their first-inning damage over the years, the Yankees put up a five spot in the opening frame before Gerrit Cole took care of the rest in an important bounce-back start.
Coming into the day having allowed seven home runs over his last two starts, Cole gave up another but limited the damage to just one on the way to the Yankees’ 9-2 win over the Diamondbacks at Chase Field.
On a day that began with news of Judge going on the injured list with a right calf strain that very much threatens his availability for the postseason, the Yankees (89-64) inched within four games of the Rays for the division with nine games remaining, while staying 5 ¹/₂ games clear of the Red Sox for the top AL wild card.
Barring a Rays collapse, the Yankees will almost certainly be facing the Red Sox in the AL wild-card series, and Aaron Boone said before Friday’s game that he would expect Cole to make a start in that series despite getting roughed up of late.
Cole then took the mound and backed up that faith, throwing six innings of two-run ball in his penultimate start of the regular season. The runs both came on Corbin Carroll’s two-run shot in the second inning, which came on a 97 mph fastball, the pitch that opponents have hit hard lately against Cole.
And while he still only generated four whiffs on 20 swings against his fastball, he found a way to minimize the damage and get back on track.
The veteran right-hander struck out six while walking none and scattering only four hits — all of which came off his fastball — against the Diamondbacks (80-74), who are on the outside looking in for the final NL wild card.
It helped that the Yankees gave Cole a 5-0 lead to work with before he threw a single pitch, as they made Diamondbacks All-Star lefty Eduardo Rodríguez throw 45 pitches in the top of the first.
Each of the first five batters reached base, as Paul Goldschmidt walked, Cody Bellinger singled, Heliot Ramos walked, Ben Rice walked and Amed Rosario singled.
One out later, George Lombard Jr. roped a two-run single up the middle to make it 5-0.
Ben Rice added a solo shot off Rodríguez in the third inning, for his 39th home run of the year (and later tripled), before Lombard knocked him out of the game in the sixth with a home run of his own that made it 7-2.
After the Yankees added a pair of insurance runs in the seventh inning, with some help from two errors by the Diamondbacks, Ryan Yarbrough, Michael Fulmer and Luis Gil combined for the final nine outs of the game.
