{"id":345241,"date":"2026-09-12T22:06:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-12T22:06:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/345241\/"},"modified":"2026-09-12T22:06:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-12T22:06:08","slug":"gerrit-cole-surrenders-three-more-hrs-as-mets-pound-yankees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/345241\/","title":{"rendered":"Gerrit Cole surrenders three more HRs as Mets pound Yankees"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the second start in a row, Gerrit Cole<\/a> was burned by a long-ball barrage.<\/p>\n

The Yankees<\/a> ace surrendered three more home runs in Saturday\u2019s 12-2 loss to the Mets<\/a> in the Bronx and has now served up seven homers over his last two outings.<\/p>\n

Those are the most home runs Cole has allowed over any two-start stretch in his 13-year MLB career.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s something we\u2019ve got to figure out, for sure,\u201d Cole, 36, said. \u201cIt\u2019s just one of those times in the season where you\u2019ve got to start making adjustments. Sometimes, adjustments are hard, but that\u2019s the demand of the game, right?<\/p>\n

Francisco Lindor, Luis Torrens and Carson Benge all took Cole deep during a lopsided afternoon in which the Mets totaled six homers to even the Subway Series.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s after Cole gave up four solo homers in his previous start last Sunday in San Diego, including back-to-back-to-back blasts<\/a> to begin that day\u2019s 4-3 loss.<\/p>\n

Physically, Cole says he feels fine \u2014 no small feat now that he\u2019s 20 starts into his return from the Tommy John surgery that sidelined him for all of last season and the start of this one.<\/p>\n

But Cole acknowledged Saturday that the lack of swing-and-miss he\u2019s generated is \u201csomething that we need to tackle.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cole entered Saturday with a 22.3% whiff percentage \u2014 his lowest since 2016 \u2014 and then elicited only three swings-and-misses out of his 77 pitches against the Mets.<\/p>\n

The right-handed Cole\u2019s 24.9% strikeout rate going into Saturday was his lowest since 2015.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s part of the product of being in the strike zone as much as he is,\u201d said manager Aaron Boone, who felt Cole wasn\u2019t able to hit his spots against the Mets (69-79).<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen he\u2019s executing at that highest level, there will be that swing-and-miss in there, because I feel like the stuff is there.\u201d<\/p>\n

All told, the Mets tagged Cole for five runs on nine hits over 4.1 innings.<\/p>\n

Saturday marked the second straight start in which Cole gave up a home run to the game\u2019s first batter, as Lindor led off the top of the first by pulling an 85.8-mph changeup into the right-field porch.<\/p>\n

Torrens followed with a two-run homer off of a 97.7-mph fastball with two outs in third.<\/p>\n

And in the fourth, Benge got just enough of a hanging, 89.5-mph slider and drove it 368 feet into the first row of the stands in right-center.<\/p>\n

The Mets recorded 14 batted balls with an exit velocity of at least 95 mph \u2014 or \u201chard hits,\u201d as MLB\u2019s Statcast defines it \u2014 against the 2023 American League Cy Young Award winner.<\/p>\n

\u201cUsually, guys like him don\u2019t make too many mistakes. When they do, you\u2019ve got to try to make them pay,\u201d said Lindor, who also struck a grand slam against reliever Bradley Hanner in the eighth inning and finished 3-for-5.<\/p>\n

Three of the homers Cole allowed in San Diego were against his fastball, which, entering Saturday, was averaging 96.9 mph \u2014 a few ticks higher than his pre-surgery form.<\/p>\n

After giving up only 13 home runs in his first 18 starts, Cole has now allowed seven homers over his last 11.1 innings.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a sudden rough stretch in what\u2019s been a successful comeback season for Cole, who returned on May 22, some 14 months after the major elbow surgery.<\/p>\n

With Saturday\u2019s loss, Cole fell to 8-9 with a 3.67 ERA and 117 strikeouts in 115.1 innings.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m in a good spot in terms of health and stamina,\u201d Cole said. \u201cI just need better efficacy for preventing runs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked Saturday if he felt his recent slide was related to his post-surgery progression, Cole said it\u2019s \u201chard for me to pin it on one thing\u201d but that sometimes good offenses \u201cteach you lessons\u201d over the course of a long season.<\/p>\n

With 14 games left in the regular season, Cole likely has two more starts to straighten out his home-run issues before the playoffs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThings can turn around quickly,\u201d Cole said. \u201cYou look at it one game at a time. I\u2019m not looking at the next two weeks. You never really know how close you are. Sometimes it\u2019s really, really small things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cole was out-pitched by Mets rookie Zac Thornton, who held the Yankees (85-63) to two runs over seven innings.<\/p>\n

Saturday\u2019s game continued to unravel after Cole departed, as Juan Soto hit a solo home run against left-hander Tim Hill in the seventh. That was Soto\u2019s first home run in the Bronx since he left the Yankees for a 15-year, $765 million contract with crosstown Mets before the 2025 season.<\/p>\n

Lindor\u2019s grand slam punctuated a five-run eighth and secured the shortstop\u2019s second multi-homer game of the season. Jared Young capped the power surge with a ninth-inning solo shot against Hanner.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t miss the ball,\u201d said Soto, who brushed off his latest round of boos in the Bronx to go 2-for-5. \u201cWe made success, we swung the [bat] the right way, we picked our moments and we capitalized.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the second start in a row, Gerrit Cole was burned by a long-ball barrage. The Yankees ace…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":345242,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[30159,22383,20390,2032,9,24,55,54,56,16301],"class_list":["post-345241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-francisco-lindor","tag-gerrit-cole","tag-juan-soto","tag-mets","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-ny","tag-yankees"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=345241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345241\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/345242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=345241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=345241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=345241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}