– by Adesina O. Koiki
A Lot of Sports Talk editor-in-chief
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BALTIMORE — Many of us are familiar with the line that expresses that the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry (thank you, Robert Burns), and the New York Yankees were presented with such a scenario where, after winning the first two games of their most recent series, they turned to their ace, Gerrit Cole, to try to finish off the sweep.
However, this time, there was no twist as the perfect scenario on paper came to fruition on the diamond.
Cole struck out eight hitters in six dominant innings as the Yankees completed a three-game sweep of the Baltimore Orioles with a 6-1 win inside Oriole Park at Camden Yards on Thursday evening. Luis Garcia Jr. and Spencer Jones each hit solo home runs in the sixth inning off Baltimore starter Kyle Bradish to give New York breathing room as the Yankees have won their fourth straight.
Unlike last night’s controversial finish where the Yankees benefitted from a questionable call on a possible Pete Alonso go-ahead home run that was called a foul ball, New York left no doubt early about who would control the contest as they scored three runs in the third to open the scoring, including run-scoring hits by Ben Rice and Heliot Ramos.
From there, and even before that, Cole was locked in on the mound, arguably posting his best start since returning to action earlier in the season after missing all of last season recovering from Tommy John surgery. After allowing a single to Pete Alonso and a walk to Gunnar Henderson on consecutive at-bats in the first, Cole retired the next 11 Orioles hitters — five of those coming by strikeout.
Cole’s eight strikeouts now give him 1,015 as a New York Yankee and moved him ahead of Roger Clemens (1,014) for 12th place on the all-time K’s list in franchise history.
*Editor’s note: Above the byline is the photo gallery from Thursday evening’s game, with photos taken by staff photographer Timothy Rice. After clicking on a photo to enlarge the picture, press the left and right arrow buttons on either side of the caption to scroll through the rest of the pictures that appear on the first page. Also, click on the numbers and/or arrow appearing immediately below the picture grid to load the next set of photos. There are 26 pictures in total.
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