NEW YORK -- Philadelphia returned from a weeklong layoff caused by additional coronavirus testing with a matchup against baseball's hottest pitcher, and Gerrit Cole won his debut in pinstripes for his 19th consecutive regular-season victory to lead the New York Yankees over the Phillies 6-3 Monday night.
DJ LeMahieu led off the bottom of the first with a home run off Jake Arrieta (0-1), who made his first appearance since surgery last August to remove a bone spur from his right elbow.
After Jay Bruce tied the score with a home run off Cole in the third, Brett Gardner led off the bottom half with a drive down the left-field wall for a home run. Aaron Hicks added an RBI double later in the inning for a 3-1 lead, and Gio Urshela blew open the game with a three-run home run in the sixth on a changeup from Deolis Guerra.
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Cole (3-0) allowed 1 run and 5 hits, struck out 4 and walked 1 on 91 pitches. He left after a 1-hour, 7-minute rain delay ahead of the seventh.
Cole's streak of consecutive winning decisions is the sixth-longest behind Carl Hubbell (24), Roy Face (22), and Rube Marquard, Roger Clemens and Arrieta (20 each).
New York improved to 8-1 for the third time, also doing so in 1988 and 2003. The Yankees have won seven straight -- the equivalent of a 19-game spurt over a 162-game season. New York is 22-0-3 in its last 25 home series, matching the team record from 1935, 1995-96 and 1997-98, according to STATS.
Aaron Judge was 2 for 4 with a double, ending his career-best streak of five games with home runs.
Arrieta, the 2015 NL Cy Young Award winner with the Chicago Cubs, gave up 3 runs and 7 hits in 5 innings with 4 strikeouts and no walks.
More rain is ahead today, and the second of two games in the Bronx was postponed and rescheduled as part of a doubleheader Wednesday when a series opens in Philadelphia. The Yankees will be the home team in the first game of the twinbill, which starts a stretch of 56 games in 54 days for the Phillies.
Philadelphia, which dropped to 1-3, had not played since an 11-6 loss to Miami at Citizens Bank Park on July 26. A covid-19 outbreak among the Marlins started that weekend and led to 21 infections in Miami's traveling party, including at least 18 players.
MLB subjected the Phillies to more intensive testing, but no positives among players were found. There were three positives among staff, but MLB said two appeared to be false positives.
CUBS 2, ROYALS 0 Kris Bryant homered in his return to the lineup and Alec Mills pitched seven effective innings, helping host Chicago beat the Kansas City Royals. Javier Baez had a sacrifice fly as NL Central-leading Chicago improved to 8-2 for the first time since 2016. Bryant also doubled in the first after missing two games with a stomach ailment. Mills (2-0) allowed 3 hits, struck out 4 and walked 3.
REDS 3, INDIANS 2 Joey Votto hit the go-ahead home run, Nick Castellanos also connected and, Cincinnati beat Cleveland. Sonny Gray shook off a tough start to the game to complete six strong innings, and Cincinnati ended a six-game home losing streak against their in-state rival. Votto snapped an 0-for-11 skid when he followed Shogo Akiyama's leadoff single in the sixth with a no-doubt shot off Zach Plesac (0-1). The 2010 NL MVP sat out a doubleheader Sunday after self-reporting coronavirus symptoms, but he was cleared to return to the lineup Monday and hit his third home run.
TWINS 5, PIRATES 4 Nelson Cruz's RBI double in the bottom of the ninth inning gave host Minnesota a victory over the Pittsburgh Pirates for their fourth straight win. Cruz, who knocked in two runs to raise his season total to 14 RBI, drove a pitch from Pirates reliever Nick Burdi (0-1) over the head of center fielder Cole Tucker with runners at second and third and one out.
NATIONAL LEAGUE
METS 7, BRAVES 2 Jacob deGrom struck out a season-high 10 in six innings as New York snapped a five-game skid by toppling the Atlanta Braves, who suffered a potentially huge blow when ace Mike Soroka was helped off the field with right leg injury. Robinson Cano had three RBI before leaving the game himself for the Mets. Wilson Ramos added a two-run home run for the Mets, who avoided a four-game sweep and ended Atlanta's five-game winning streak.
ROCKIES 7, GIANTS 6 Nolan Arenado hit his first home run of the season to ignite a five-run sixth inning as Colorado matched its best start in franchise history by holding off San Francisco in Denver. The Rockies are 7-2 for the fifth time in team history. They also had that mark in 1995, 1997, 2011 and 2015.
