MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Gerrit Cole gave up home runs to his first three batters and a career-high five in 2 1/3 innings but the New York Yankees rallied to beat the Minnesota Twins 10-7 Thursday night behind two home runs from Joey Gallo.
Cole left trailing 7-3, and the Yankees tied the score in the sixth when Aaron Hicks hit his second home run of the season, a two-run drive. Hicks homered after shortstop Carlos Correa and second baseman Jorge Polanco failed to communicate on Gleyber Torres’ popup and allowed the ball to fall for a single.
DJ LeMahieu hit the 100th home run of his career, and the Yankees got their 16th comeback win, tying Colorado and San Francisco for the major league lead.
“Don’t let us hang around. That’s the dynamic,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said.
New York improved to 14-2-2 in series and became just the second team to win after allowing home runs to the opposition’s first three batters. The Yankees’ 41-16 record tops the major leagues.
“With this team, we’re never out of a game, especially that early in the game,” Hicks said after his first home run since April 12. “We have a lot of veteran guys that are in this lineup that understand that you’ve got to keep pushing throughout the whole game. We’re a team that can score a lot of runs.”
Five of Minnesota’s first 16 batters homered off Cole, who had never before allowed more than three in a game. He allowed seven runs and eight hits, his ERA rising from 2.78 to 3.63.
“Stuff was just over the middle of the plate, pitch after pitch,” Cole said. “Boy that was tough, just really poor execution and just not great stuff and never really found a way to try to make it any better.”
Lucas Luetge, Miguel Castro (3-0), Wandy Peralta, Michael King and Clay Holmes combined for 6 2/3 innings of scoreless,…
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