Yankees’ Gerrit Cole delivers another strong outing

CLEVELAND — Three batters into the bottom of the first inning Tuesday night, Gerrit Cole had already given up three hits and was pitching with a deficit for the first time this season.

Twenty-one outs later, Cole walked off the mound after seven quality innings on the way to his third win in as many starts in the Yankees’ 11-2 blowout of the Guardians at Progressive Field.

Cole shook off the two-run first inning and then mostly cruised the rest of the night to turn in yet another fine outing.

“I think his fastball profile wasn’t where he wanted it, but he was just so much in command and in control of the game,” manager Aaron Boone said. “Even in that first inning, I just felt like nothing sped up. It was like, ‘Alright, let me see where I need to make my adjustments.’ Him and [catcher Jose Trevino] did a great job of making those adjustments and then he got in control.

“The lead started to swell for him and he went out there and pitched like you like to see a guy pitching with the lead. Another in-command, in-control outing, especially when it didn’t go his way initially.”

Through three starts this season, Cole (3-0, 1.40 ERA) has thrown 19 ¹/₃ innings and given up just three runs, pitching like the ace the Yankees need him to be, especially with three members of the rotation injured.

“Anytime you can put your team in a position to win the game, it feels good,” Cole said. “This was important for us today to try to put us in position to win the series tomorrow. So it feels good to do your job.”

The Guardians jumped on Cole with Steven Kwan’s leadoff single to center field, Andres Gimenez’s single that just got past the backhand of Gleyber Torres and Jose Ramirez’s RBI double to right.

But beginning with the next batter, Josh Naylor — who hit a sacrifice fly to make it 2-0 — Cole retired 19 of the final 23 batters he faced, exactly what Guardians ace Shane Bieber had done to the Yankees the night before.

“The stuff was a bit down for whatever reason, especially the fastball,” Cole said. “But the breaking balls were good. Then we spotted the fastball when we needed to as the game went on, and I actually thought it got better.”

Cole only struck out three — a combination of his stuff being down and the Guardians being tough to punch out, he said — but instead found a different way to be effective as his encouraging start to the season continued.

“He seems like he’s in a really good place physically and mentally,” Anthony Rizzo said. “It’s been fun to play behind it. … It’s good for him [and] it’s definitely good for us.”