Yankees Highlights: Gerrit Cole dispatches the Red Sox with ease

The Yankees entered this four-game set with the Red Sox with a chance to essentially extinguish their rivals’ AL East hopes not even 20 games into the season. If the returns from the first contest are any indication, Boston doesn’t look like a team too determined to keep opponents from stepping on their throats. The Yankees sent their ace to the mound and comfortably dispatched the Red Sox 10-3, adding to their division lead and sending the Red Sox to 6-14 on the year.

Winner of the Game

It’s become a common refrain that Gerrit Cole has gotten off to a strong start without even having his best stuff in any of his first four outings as a Yankee. If he wasn’t at his best tonight, then he was pretty darn close. The only blemish on his line was an Alex Verdugo solo home run in the fourth, as he otherwise easily handled the Boston lineup. He yielded just four hits and zero walks across seven innings, striking out eight.

It was also a big night for slumping sluggers. Gleyber Torres showed signs of breaking out of his rut with a 4-4 night, and Gary Sanchez clubbed his second homer of the year, a mammoth dinger off of Ryan Brasier:

Honorable mention: While he didn’t do anything as showy as blasting a ball nearly 460 feet, Mike Tauchman did pick up three hits and four RBI, pushing his season OPS to .852.

Loser of the Game

As the scoreline readily indicates, nothing much went wrong on offense, where every member of the starting lineup reached base at least once. The worst performance belonged to Jonathan Holder, who relieved Cole and quickly ran into trouble, facing five batters and recording just one out. This forced Aaron Boone to turn to Adam Ottavino on a night where it looked like the skipper should get a chance to rest his best relievers.

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FanGraphs