It almost did not matter that the Yankees’ offense swung as if it was put together from whatever Hal Steinbrenner could find in the cushions of his limo.
Not when they finally unveiled a duo who, in their first time pitching alongside the other, demonstrated why they arrived with a combined $542 million price tag.
Max Fried and Gerrit Cole — together at last — were worth the wait, each a different shade of excellent to help the Yankees salvage a doubleheader split Wednesday despite the club’s offense mostly taking the day off.
Fried, a surprise to even be on a major league mound after only one brief rehab start, showed no rust over five excellent, scoreless innings to guide the Yankees to a 2-0 victory in the nightcap.
A combined 84,354 fans in The Bronx saw the Yankees’ offense scuffle, going 1-for-10 with runners in scoring position in the 5-3, 10-inning loss in the opener and scoreless in the second game until the seventh inning, when a Jasson Domínguez double and Anthony Volpe single scored the only runs they would need.
But the day probably will be remembered for a pitching pair with a combined nine All-Star Games tallying 12 innings in which they let up three runs, five hits and a walk with 18 strikeouts.
This was a day that had been in the making since Dec. 17, 2024, when the Yankees locked up Fried on a $218 million pact to be the sidekick of Cole and his $324 million mega-deal.
Injuries continually thwarted that vision, from Cole’s Tommy John surgery in 2025 to Fried’s bone bruise in mid-May this year.
But with Fried jumping to the major league rotation after just a three-inning rehab start, the pair hopes to have two-plus months and a postseason to see what damage they can do with Cam Schlittler and Carlos Rodón, once he returns.
“I missed him all year,” Cole said of Fried after letting up two home runs and virtually nothing else in the first game of the day. “We played keepaway I guess so far this year, and so it’s a good day.
“… It’s nice that it’s finally come to fruition for sure. A little bit too long for both of our tastes.”
Pitching for the first time in over two months, Fried looked both dominant and healthy, including throwing the fastest pitch of his season (98.5 mph), efficient in recording 15 outs with just 57 pitches and mixing in seven distinct types of pitches, six of which yielded at least one whiff.
That his effort came mere hours after Cole’s, who showed off maybe the best stuff of his post-surgery career, provided a pretty clear road map for how the Yankees hope to get to and through October.
“We have high hopes this year,” manager Aaron Boone said of a club that finished the night 57-45, “and those are two of the big reasons why.”
Cole entered his start having induced as many as 12 swings-and-misses in a game — a total he matched before the end of the fourth inning Wednesday, finishing with 21.
Cole sat down the first 14 batters he faced and was perfect until he was decidedly imperfect. With two outs in the fifth, Nick Gonzales ripped a clean single past a diving Ryan McMahon, and three pitches later Jacob Gonzalez waited on a 1-1 changeup and pulled it to the short porch for a two-run lead.
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Cole rebounded and escaped a testy sixth, in which he pitched around a one-out balk that emerged from the pitch clock shutting off while Cole was on the mound, but he served up another homer in the seventh, the other Gonzales stroking a four-seamer into the Yankees’ bullpen in right-center.
Because the Yankees only scored in the opener with a three-run homer from Ben Rice in the seventh, the Pirates seized control in the 10th, when they scored a pair off Fernando Cruz.
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