NEW YORK _ Gerrit Cole pitched like an ace. Luke Voit hit two home runs and drove in six runs as the Yankees' bats got back to raking. Friday night, the Yankees got back to playing like a team that expects to be in the playoffs, sweeping the doubleheader against the Orioles at Yankee Stadium.
Cole pitched a complete-game, two-hit shutout in the Yankees' 6-0 win of the first game, behind the most run support he has gotten in nearly a month. Voit hit two homers to get back atop the league as the bats continued to batter the Orioles in the 10-1 win in the nightcap.
What a difference a week makes for the Yankees.
With the win Wednesday night over the Blue Jays, the Yankees (24-21) have now won three straight, the first time stringing together wins since Aug. 29-30 when they took three games from the Mets. In the span of three days, the Yankees, who had lost 15 of 20, have gone from clinging to playoff hopes to putting some separation between them and the Orioles (20-24) for a hold on the eighth and final playoff spot.
Last Friday, the Yankees began a five-game losing streak that had their playoff hopes looking bleak when they split a doubleheader to the Orioles. They dropped three out of four in Baltimore.
Yankees pitchers allowed 22 runs in those four games. Friday, Cole was dominant and Tanaka solid.
Cole walked one and struck out nine. He did not give up a hit until Pedro Severino's sixth inning single and did not allow a runner past third base until Renato Nunez singled with two outs in the third and he took second and third on defensive indifference.
It snapped a career-high 10-game streak (dating back to last September) of Cole allowing at least one home run a start. It was also just the second time this season he has pitched seven innings.
Cole earned his first win since Aug. 14 against the Red Sox, snapping a three-game losing streak. That included a spectacular sixth-inning meltdown Saturday at Baltimore.
"It's frustrating," Cole said of the previous start when he imploded in the sixth inning. "Just the opportunity presented itself, especially with a doubleheader, we've got seven more innings to cover so I was happy to be able to finish it for me personally, but also for the rest of the balance of the bullpen for the rest of the day.
"And so it's just nice to put a bow on it."
Tanaka only went five innings, but gave the Yankees a solid start. He allowed one earned run in the first, but buckled down. The Orioles got three hits off him. He struck out five and did not walk a batter.
It was the most run support Cole had received in a while. The Yankees had scored one run total over his last three starts. They continued to batter the Orioles' pitching in the nightcap.
DJ LeMahieu, Kyle Higashioka and Brett Gardner each homered off Alex Cobb, chasing him early in the first game. Voit homered twice off Orioles reliever Asher Wojciechowski, who came in when rookie Keegan Akin couldn't get out of the first.
With 16, Voit is now tied again with Mike Trout for the most homers in the big leagues. His six RBIs gave him 36 on the season, tied for eighth in MLB.
Gleyber Torres had two hits, including an RBI single and Miguel Andujar had an RBI double in the nightcap. Mike Tauchman went 3 for 3 and Gardner went 2 for 2 in the afternoon. Even Gary Sanchez, who had been benched for striking out in seven straight at-bats in last weekend's series in Baltimore, got a single in the nightcap. He snapped an 0-for-18 streak with a fifth-inning, hard-hit line drive single to the wall in right field.
It was a marked difference from the struggling lineup the Yankees ran up there last weekend in Camden Yards.
The Yankees had 11 runs over those four games and had just two home runs in that series. They went 5 for 33 with runners in scoring position over the four games last weekend, but had six hits with RISP in the two games Friday night.
