Gerrit Cole outduels Pablo López as Twins fall to Yankees 2-0 and settle for series split

NEW YORK – Donovan Solano lined a single to left field in the fifth inning Sunday, giving the Twins infielder an 11-game hitting streak.

There were plenty more streaks extended by the Twins at Yankee Stadium, too. But Solano's was one of the few positive ones.

For instance: Yankees starter Gerrit Cole earned his fourth consecutive victory of 2023, a 2-0 shutout, and beat the Twins for the fifth time in a row. Cole's teams are 6-0 all-time against Minnesota when the righthander starts.

Then there's Byron Buxton, whose three whiffs Sunday mean he has struck out in nine consecutive at-bats (with one walk mixed in). Or Max Kepler, whose return from the injured list Saturday has resulted in six consecutive ugly at-bats, two of them strikeouts and four weak ground balls.

Worst of all for the Twins: It's now nine years and counting since the Twins won a series in the Bronx.

Pablo López gave up only two runs over six innings, and in typical this-building-is-haunted Twins style, both of them left the visitors rolling their eyes. The short version: the Twins lost because of a hit-by-pitch that missed the batter, and a home run that's not a home run anywhere else in the Western Hemisphere.

"I don't like playing what-if, but it's not like ..." Rocco Baldelli said with a shrug, his sentence trailing off. "Pablo was in control. Sometimes, those things happen."

Things like, López issues a one-out walk to Aaron Judge, then bounces a ball in the dirt to Anthony Rizzo, who immediately takes first base. The Twins challenged the call, and suggested after the game that Rizzo might have felt dirt land on his shoe, but umpires ruled that video replay was inconclusive. One out later, DJ LeMahieu lined a single to right field, scoring Judge from second base.

"They get a free base," Baldelli grumbled, "and [Judge] is able to score on a ball that he's obviously not going to score on if he's standing on first base."

LeMahieu's next at-bat was even more frustrating. The Yankees third baseman took an inside-out swing at a high-and-tight fastball and hit a fly ball to right field.

"It looked just like a regular fly ball," López said in disbelief. "It was a good pitch. But because we're in this ballpark, it happens."

What happened was, the ball landed on top of the right-field wall, a mere 340 feet away. It was within reach of Kepler's glove, but the right fielder didn't realize how close he was to the wall, and the impact prevented him from catching it. By StatCast's measurement, the ball would have landed in play in all 29 of the other MLB ballparks.

"The result wasn't what we were after," López said. "But you just have to realize what happened, accept it and just move forward."

Much like Buxton, Kepler and the rest of the silenced Twins lineup, which scored nine runs in the first inning of this four-game series, then only seven more in the other 35 innings.

"We played two good games and grabbed two wins at Yankee Stadium, and we walk out splitting. It's not going to feel good," Baldelli said of the Twins, who last won a series at Yankee Stadium in 2014, and last won a four-game series in the Bronx in 1991. "I would call it a competitive series. Overall, the pitching was at a pretty high level."

None higher than Cole's. The Yankees' $36 million-a-year pitcher surrendered only Solano's fifth-inning single, a similar hit by Michael A. Taylor an inning later, and one walk en route to the seventh complete game and fourth shutout of his 11-year career. Only Taylor ever reached second base for the Twins, but a pair of ground balls kept him there, and the Twins never came close to threatening again.

"He was spotting his pitches well, throwing a lot of strikes," said Jose Miranda. "He had his A-game."