Yankees lineup does the job to support Gerrit Cole in second straight win over Braves

A Saturday afternoon dedicated to nostalgia for the past might have transitioned into a display of hope for the present and future. 

The Old-Timers — including members of the 1996 World Series team celebrating the 30-year anniversary and plenty of representatives from the 2009 champions, the last link to Yankees greatness — put on a show for 45,222 in The Bronx who came to pay tribute to yesterday’s heroes. 

And a few hours later, a pair of exciting rookies on the 2026 Yankees offered some hope that tomorrow’s — and maybe today’s — Yankees can reclaim some of that glory. 

On Old-Timers’ Day, it was George Lombard Jr. and Spencer Jones — who have played a combined 48 major league games — who carried a previously silent Yankees offense in a 5-4 victory over Chris Sale and the Braves. 

“I didn’t think about that,” Jones said about the rookies shining in front of the franchise alumni. “That’s pretty sweet. I think those guys lay the foundation of what this organization is.” 

The Yankees (66-51), who have seen 18 of their past 24 games get decided by one or two runs, will try to sweep a series against the class of the NL East on Sunday after moving 1 ¹/₂ games clear of the Red Sox for the top AL wild-card spot. 

They survived another nail-biter in part because Gerrit Cole (seven innings, two runs) continued what has been a remarkable run for Yankees starting pitchers, who sport a 1.67 ERA (64 ²/₃ innings, 12 earned runs) in their past 11 games. 

But Cole was dented in the fifth, which meant he needed some support. He found it mostly through a pair of rookies who are untested but have undeniable ability. 

Jones and Lombard finished a combined 4-for-6 with two walks, a homer, a triple, three runs scored and three RBIs. The rest of the lineup went 4-for-24. 

The game was ultimately decided in the fifth, in which the Braves tagged Cole for two runs in the top half of the inning to take a 2-1 edge before the Yankees provided an immediate answer. 

Lombard — who seemingly does everything well — appeared to strike out on two consecutive pitches to lead off the frame, but in both instances he used challenges to earn balls three and four of the plate appearance. 

After the walk, up stepped Jones, who against Sale — a big lefty famously dominant against same-sided hitters — cranked an RBI triple that split the outfielders in right-center to tie the game. 

“Excellent, really excellent,” manager Aaron Boone said of Jones, who had snapped an 0-for-19 skid with a first-inning RBI single against Sale. “He’s shown here over the last 10 days, I feel like he’s gaining experience and you can see it up there — you can see some adjustments he makes.” 

A Yankees team that has scored more than five runs just four times in its past 45 games needs to score any way it can, and so it will not apologize for the go-ahead run then coming on a balk from Sale, who was irate but less outraged than his manager, Walt Weiss, who was ejected from the game. 

The next Yankees runs came more traditionally: Lombard visited the short porch in the seventh inning for his second career home run and Ben Rice added one of his own in the eighth, both solo shots mattering because Brent Headrick (who let up a dinger to Ronald Acuña Jr. in the eighth) and David Bednar (one run on a hit and a walk in the ninth) were not perfect. 

For too long, just about perfection has been required from the Yankees staff, so inept have been the bats. Jones, cartoonishly talented but with extreme swing-and-miss weaknesses in the minors, showed enough to replace Jasson Domínguez on the roster. Lombard, just 21, is asserting on a daily basis that his glove is not just ready but elite and his bat seems to be improving. 

“We were confident that he’s ready for this,” Boone said of Lombard, who is just the fifth Yankee in the past 46 years to record a hit in each of his first four games. “He’s certainly shown that here through his first … [four] games.”