The Yankees looked differently, played differently and found a different result against a club that sure felt familiar.
Maybe it was a lineup that looked far more whole, even without Aaron Judge. Trent Grisham immediately announced his return from the injured list by stroking a leadoff home run while Ryan McMahon doubled and fought for a nine-pitch walk. The two, who had been sidelined during the entirety of the club’s slide, played a part in four of the team’s five runs.
Maybe it was the passing storm with heavy winds and a sky that opened up after the top of the third, the downpour perhaps washing away the slop and grime that the Yankees had not been able to shake.
Maybe it was Gerrit Cole, one of the game’s great competitors, trading in gas for guts to bridge a 53-minute rain delay and find a way to grind through five solid innings. Or maybe it was simply an opponent that seems always willing to take a punch when the Yankees’ right hook needs work.
Whatever the cause, the Yankees looked more like the Yankees in snapping a season-worst, seven-game skid by quieting the Twins, 5-2, on Friday night in front of 45,104, many of whom brushed off the rain and remained on a fireworks night in The Bronx.
“We’re in a rut,” said Cole, who managed to take down five innings while allowing two runs despite the lengthy delay. “We needed this one today.”
The Yankees (49-38) recorded their first victory since June 24, halting the hard-to-fathom skid by scoring their most runs since June 19 — they had not even plated five runs in 12 straight contests.
For the entirety of that slide, the Yankees were without Grisham, who missed three weeks with a hamstring strain. He returned to center and to the top of the order, stepping up in the first inning and authoring what manager Aaron Boone called “a classic Grish at-bat.”
He went down, 1-2, worked the count full, and then turned on a middle-of-the-plate changeup and smacked it to the second deck in right.
This despite just a one-game rehab assignment.
“It was like I never left,” said Grisham, who had helplessly watched the club spiral without him. “Which is surprising — I thought I was going to have to find it a little bit.”
McMahon, himself back from a throat infection, returned to third base — making a smooth play to help Fernando Cruz escape a jam in the eighth — and pushed José Caballero back to his natural shortstop.
A defense that had contributed to a stunning 17 unearned runs during the skid looked far more buttoned up.
“In what’s been a tough week for us, to be able to go out there and play a complete game,” Boone said. “That one feels good.”
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Ben Rice, who had gone 2-for-25 during the slide, followed up a Grisham single in the third inning by cracking his 24th home run of the season, this one pulled into the short porch, for a go-ahead, two-run shot.
The Yankees gained separation in the seventh, when McMahon doubled and scored on a knock from Caballero, who then came around to score on a sacrifice fly from Grisham.
On a day of returns, Cole, too, returned to form. After a pair of duds, the ace allowed just a first-inning home run to Kody Clemens and a well-placed RBI single from Victor Caratini in the fourth, an inning in which Cole’s sheer presence on the mound impressed.
During the delay, he had gotten up to throw approximated innings — 8-15 pitches every 10 minutes to ensure he would be ready to take the mound — then talked Boone into allowing him to return for the fifth inning, too.
Cole, plus Brent Headrick, Paul Blackburn, Cruz and David Bednar (17th save), helped toppled a club that is a perpetual pushover around these parts.
The Yankees are now 112-44 against Minnesota since 2002 (128-46 if you include the postseason), which is the majors’ best record for one team against another in the span.
The onslaught has been unabated despite the Twins making the playoffs for 10 of those seasons, a perfectly fine team against any opponent that isn’t wearing pinstripes.
Whatever the cause, the skid is over.
“I think everyone was ready to turn the corner,” Rice said.
