On Tuesday afternoon, Cleveland Guardians manager Stephen Vogt felt encouraged because, although Jose Ramirez was not getting results, his exit velocity was high.
A few hours later, Ramirez validated Vogt’s statement with three doubles and Cleveland produced one of its better showings at the plate in recent weeks.
Ramirez and the Guardians hope to enjoy another productive performance Wednesday night when they visit Gerrit Cole and the New York Yankees, who are holding their breath about Aaron Judge’s ailing rib and shoulder.
The Guardians opened the series by scoring the final six runs of Tuesday’s 9-4 victory. Ramirez raised his average eight points to .236 by hitting doubles in three straight at-bats in the fourth, fifth and seventh innings.
Ramirez heads into Wednesday hitting .308 (20-for-65) in his past 17 games and 8-for-18 in his past 14 games with runners in scoring position.
“It was great to see Jose come through,” Vogt said after his team scored more than four runs for the first times in 13 games. “He was close. We knew that.
“He’s been hitting the ball really hard. So to see three of them kind of land and get down, his first ball was indicative of what he’s been doing.”
During the regular season, Ramirez has produced a .402 average at Yankee Stadium and a .337 average against the Yankees.
Some of those positive results are versus Cole, against whom he is 9-for-23 (.391) in their previous encounters.
None of those occurred when Cole was coming off reconstructive elbow surgery, and the right-hander is off to a strong start in two starts back from the injury.
Cole (1-0, 0.00 ERA) has allowed six hits in his 12 2/3 scoreless innings thus far in starts against Tampa Bay and Kansas City. After receiving a no-decision in his season debut May 22, Cole struck out 10 batters and allowed four hits in 6 2/3 innings during a 7-0 win last Wednesday versus the Royals.
“I think it’s coming along,” Cole said last week. “There’s still stuff to work on in general. We moved the ball around the strike zone well tonight. Maybe we didn’t get through the fastballs as well as we could have. But with what we had tonight, I thought we used it well.”
Cole is 7-2 with a 2.82 ERA in 11 career regular-season starts against Cleveland.
This outing will occur without Judge in the lineup.
Judge missed his first game of the season Tuesday due to a bruise in his right ribs that he also feels in his right shoulder. After consulting with a team doctor Tuesday, the three-time AL MVP will see a specialist Wednesday.
Judge is day-to-day for now, but the injury has lingered for the past few weeks and may be related to the slugger hitting only one of his 17 homers in his past 18 games.
“I think probably something that’s been affecting him a little bit here recently, especially this weekend,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “So, hopefully, it is something that we just get calmed down here and put it behind us.”
After Paul Goldschmidt drove in all four runs Tuesday, the Yankees hope to produce plenty of offense against right-hander Gavin Williams (8-3, 3.07).
Williams is 3-0 with a 1.29 ERA in his past three starts and has 22 of his 88 strikeouts in those games.
Williams last pitched a week ago when he allowed one run on three hits in seven innings against Washington. It was the fifth time he completed at least seven innings and sixth time he allowed one run or fewer.
Williams is 1-1 with a 4.22 ERA in two career starts against the Yankees.
–Field Level Media
