Some players just have the number of others. For Boston Red Sox third baseman Rafael Devers, he has made life for New York Yankees ace Gerrit Cole miserable. Entering Saturday’s game, Devers has 14 career hits against Cole, with eight of them being home runs. There has been no sure bet in a Yankees vs. Red Sox game than Devers sending a pitch from Cole out of the ballpark.
In the first inning of Saturday’s game, Cole hit Devers with a pitch on the second throw of the at-bat. That allowed Devers to take his base, but never scored, as Tyler O’Neill grounded into a double play.
The next time the two faced off, Cole didn’t even give Devers a chance to warm up at the plate. Instead, Cole called for the intentional walk with the bases empty.
If you wanted to see how decisive it was, Cole literally pointed Devers to take his base.
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Gerrit Cole emphatically calls for intentional walk of Rafael Devers
The decision to intentionally walk Devers backfired for Cole, as he issued a walk to O’Neill, gave up an RBI double by Masatake Yoshida and a two-run single by Wilyer Abreu to give the Red Sox a 3-1 lead.
After getting walked his first two at-bats, Devers did strike with a two-run single off the Yankees ace in the top of the fifth inning to extend the Red Sox’s lead to 5-1.
Cole gave up another two runs in the fifth on a two-run single by Yoshida and was eventually pulled by manager Aaron Boone.
Before intentionally walking Devers, Cole was having a solid day, allowing no hits or runs through 3.1 innings. Since then, he was clobbered for seven earned runs on five hits. “The Devers Effect” is real, folks.
