Giancarlo Stanton and Luke Voit delivered two-run doubles in a five-run fifth inning as the red-hot New York Yankees pushed their season-high winning streak to nine games with a 7-1 victory over the visiting Minnesota Twins Saturday afternoon.
The Yankees are 21-5 since dropping three of four in Fenway Park to the Boston Red Sox July 22-25.
Gerrit Cole (12-6) made his second start since returning from missing over two weeks with COVID-19 and allowed five hits in his fifth scoreless start of the season. He struck out six and walked one while throwing 97 pitches over six innings.
Tyler Wade accounted for New York’s first two runs by hitting an RBI single in the second off Kenta Maeda (6-5) and scoring on a wild pitch with the bases loaded in the fifth.
The Yankees loaded the bases again after Maeda walked Aaron Judge. Maeda exited with an injury after throwing a 1-0 pitch to Stanton, who made it 4-0 when he lined a two-run double to left field off reliever Edgar Garcia.
After Judge was thrown out trying to score on a grounder by Rougned Odor, Voit pushed the lead to 6-0 with a double to left field.
Maeda — who the Twins said exited with right forearm tightness — allowed five runs on four hits in 4 1/3 innings.
Andrew Velazquez added his first career homer in the eighth.
New York produced its third inning with at least four runs of the series and it occurred shortly after Cole delivered his most impressive sequence.
He loaded the bases by allowing singles to Willians Astudillo and Andrelton Simmons before walking Max Kepler. Following a visit from pitching coach Matt Blake, Cole escaped the inning with strikeouts of Jorge Polanco and Josh Donaldson.
Jorge Polanco homered for Minnesota’s only run of the game.
The Yankees nearly took a 9-0 lead in the seventh when Odor appeared to homer over the right-center field fence. Odor’s homer did not count because he called timeout.
–Field Level Media