NEW YORK (AP) — Gerrit Cole stuck out four fingers on his pitching hand, then pointed toward first base as Rafael Devers looked on incredulously. Having held the first 10 Red Sox batters hitless, the New York Yankees ace handed Boston's slumping star an intentional walk with no one on base.
Boston then walked all over Cole and the Yankees.
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Boston Red Sox's Rafael Devers runs to first base for a two-run single during the fifth inning of a baseball game against the New York Yankees, Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
New York Yankees pitcher Gerrit Cole reacts after Boston Red Sox's Masataka Yoshida, of Japan, hit a two-run single during the fifth inning of a baseball game Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
Boston Red Sox's Rafael Devers smiles after hitting a two-run single during the fifth inning of a baseball game against the New York Yankees, Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
New York Yankees pitcher Gerrit Cole reacts after Boston Red Sox's Rafael Devers hit a two-run single during the fifth inning of a baseball game, Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
New York Yankees' Gerrit Cole throws during the third inning of a baseball game against the Boston Red Sox, Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
Devers scored in a three-run fourth inning and hit a two-run single in a four-run fifth that rallied the Red Sox over New York 7-1 on Saturday.
“They grabbed the momentum. It inspired them,” Cole said. “I think, looking back, it’s the wrong move.”
Yankees manager Aaron Boone said he and Cole discussed in the leadup to the game being more aggressive in the use of international walks — Cole hadn't issued one in seven years. Cole said he talked out the possibility with pitching coach Matt Blake while in the tunnel before the fourth inning, viewing it as a way to get the starter deeper into the game on a day when the Yankees bullpen was thin.
Yankees catcher Austin Wells wasn't made aware of the plan.
“I was a bit caught off guard,” he said. “Thought he had some good momentum.”
Wells didn't think about trying to get Cole to reverse his decision.
“We’re just kidding. We don’t actually walk him," Wells proposed. “I don't know if that’s a thing.”
Cole and Boone both took an unusually long time before speaking with reporters after the game.
“Just a rough day," Cole said.
Cole (6-5) allowed seven runs, his most since June 9, 2022. He hit a career-high three batters and left after 4 1/3 innings.
“He caught me by surprise,” Devers said through a translator. "I didn’t expect that from a future Hall of Famer and I feel like he panicked a little bit.”
Cole retired nine of his first 10 batters, allowing his only batter to reach when he hit Devers with a cutter in the first.
“I felt like the first at-bat he hit him on purpose,” Red Sox manager Alex Cora said. “He doesn’t want to face him. That’s the bottom line. He told us with the intentional walk that the first at-bat he hit him.”
At the time of the intentional walk, the Yankees led 1-0 behind Gleyber Torres' third-inning RBI single.
“Once we scored the run my preference would have been let’s attack them. But, obviously, I didn’t communicate that well enough,” Boone said.
Starting with the intentional walk, 10 of 12 batters reached against the 2023 AL Cy Young Award winner.
"It was just odd," Boston's Triston Casas said of Cole's decision.
Devers entered 14 for 41 (.316) with eight homers and 15 strikeouts against Cole, including the postseason.
“Obviously, Raffy's had some success against him, something that he’s also got to get through, too, making sure he understands, hey, the next 40 or 50 at-bats in my career against him I might have massive success because I’m Gerrit Cole," Boone said. "But there is a psychological component to all that.”
Devers stole second and Masataka Yoshida hit an opposite-field RBI double into the left-field corner for Boston’s first hit, tying it at 1. Wilyer Abreu followed with a two-run single for a 3-1 lead, and Casas bounced into an inning-ending double play.
“If I make pitches after that and I continue to execute at a high level, then the plan works,” Cole said. “But evidently the plan didn’t work. So I need to make better pitches afterwards in order for it to work.”
New York's earliest bases-empty intentional walks had been in the sixth inning: to the Philadelphia Athletics’ Al Simmons by Roy Sherid leading off on Sept. 22, 1930, and to Washington’s Frank Howard by Fritz Peterson with two outs on April 22, 1970.
Trevor Story singled leading off the fifth on Saturday and stole second, Danny Jansen walked and Enmanuel Valdez flied out as Story took third. Jarren Duran was hit by a pitch, loading the bases, and Devers lined a knuckle-curve into right for a 5-1 lead. Tyler O’Neill was hit by a pitch and Yoshida chased Cole with a two-run single.
“Obviously, because it backfired a little bit I think we all wish we could go the other way on certain things,” Boone said. “But at the end of the day, we didn’t make pitches when we had opportunities and it burned us today.”
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Boston Red Sox's Rafael Devers runs to first base for a two-run single during the fifth inning of a baseball game against the New York Yankees, Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
New York Yankees pitcher Gerrit Cole reacts after Boston Red Sox's Masataka Yoshida, of Japan, hit a two-run single during the fifth inning of a baseball game Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
Boston Red Sox's Rafael Devers smiles after hitting a two-run single during the fifth inning of a baseball game against the New York Yankees, Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
New York Yankees pitcher Gerrit Cole reacts after Boston Red Sox's Rafael Devers hit a two-run single during the fifth inning of a baseball game, Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
New York Yankees' Gerrit Cole throws during the third inning of a baseball game against the Boston Red Sox, Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
The European Union on Monday condemned attacks on U.N. peacekeepers in Lebanon and rejected Israeli allegations that the U.N. was keeping them there to obstruct military operations against Hezbollah.
Five peacekeepers have been wounded in attacks that struck their positions since Israel began a ground campaign against the Hezbollah militant group, with most blamed on Israeli forces. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said that “their work is very important. It’s completely unacceptable attacking United Nations troops.”
Israel has been escalating its campaign against Hezbollah after a year of exchanges of fire, while it is also at war with Hamas in Gaza.
Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, who do not say how many were fighters but say women and children make up more than half of the fatalities. The war has destroyed large areas of Gaza and displaced about 90% of its population of 2.3 million people.
It’s been more than a year since Hamas-led militants blew holes in Israel’s security fence and stormed into army bases and farming communities, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting another 250. They are still holding about 100 captives inside Gaza, a third of whom are believed to be dead.
Here's the latest:
BRUSSELS — Irish Foreign Minister Micheál Martin is accusing Israel of trying to prevent the world from seeing what its troops are doing in Lebanon and Gaza, and of working to undermine the United Nations.
Asked what Israel’s aim might be in demanding that UNIFIL peacekeepers leave their bases after a series of attacks, Martin said: “essentially to drive the eyes and ears out of south Lebanon and to give itself free rein.”
“We cannot have an undermining and a chipping away of the status or the credibility or structures of the United Nations and particularly its peacekeeping forces,” Martin said in Luxembourg, where EU foreign ministers are meeting.
“We see what’s happening in northern Gaza, for example, in terms of the necessity of eyes and ears on the ground. The world has really no full picture of what’s happening in Gaza,” he told reporters.
Martin added that “Israel is essentially now undermining (not only) the United Nations and the United Nations peacekeeping force, but the very rules based international order, and it needs to step back.”
He called on his EU counterparts “to stand up now on the side of what’s right and proper and moral in terms of humanity.”
TEL AVIV, Israel — Israel’s Shin Bet domestic security agency said Monday police had charged two Israelis on accusations that they planned to carry out an assassination at the behest of Iran.
The agency said Vladislav Victorson, 30, was approached online by a person called Mari Hossi and was instructed to carry out missions that ranged from petty vandalism to torching cars, and paid more than $5,000.
The Shin Bet said Victorson was asked to damage communications infrastructure and ATMs, although a statement did not say whether he carried out these acts. It also did not name the Israeli figure he allegedly agreed to assassinate. The Shin Bet said he also sought to acquire weapons, including a sniper’s rifle, guns and grenades. According to the Shin Bet, Victorson enlisted two other people, including his girlfriend, Anna Bernstein, 18, to assist in his missions.
The Shin Bet said Iranian agents are known to use social media and promises of cash in efforts to recruit Israelis to carry out such attacks.
Israel and Iran have a longstanding shadow war, which over the past year has erupted into direct conflict.
BRUSSELS — The European Union condemned attacks on U.N. peacekeepers in Lebanon and rejected allegations that U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres is responsible for obstructing the Israeli army.
Sixteen EU countries are contributing to the UNIFIL peacekeeping force. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said that “their work is very important. It’s completely unacceptable attacking United Nations troops.” Five peacekeepers have been wounded in attacks that struck their positions, with most blamed on Israeli forces.
Speaking in Luxembourg before chairing talks between EU foreign ministers, Borrell underlined that the U.N. Security Council decides whether UNIFIL should be moved, “so stop blaming Secretary Guterres.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday called for UNIFIL to heed Israel’s warnings to evacuate, accusing them of “providing a human shield” to Hezbollah. In a video addressed to Guterres, who has been banned from entering Israel, Netanyahu told the U.N. chief “to get (UNIFIL) out of the danger zone.”
Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg, whose country is one of Europe’s strongest backers of Israel, said the attacks are “simply unacceptable” and that UNFIL will not be leaving.
“No, they will not withdraw. Yes, they will continue to fulfill the mandate. And yes, we demand on each and every party to respect this mandate and respect the security and safety of our blue helmets,” he told reporters.
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — The Health Ministry in the Gaza Strip said it has launched the second round of a polio vaccination campaign in the war-ravaged territory.
It said Monday that a second does of the vaccine will be administered to children under 10 in the central part of the territory over the next three days before the campaign is expanded to the north and south.
The campaign began last month after the territory registered its first polio case in Gaza in 25 years — a 10-month-old boy, now paralyzed in one leg.
Health workers succeeded in administering the first dose of the vaccine to around 560,000 children despite myriad challenges, including ongoing fighting, the breakdown of law and order and widespread damage to roads and infrastructure.
The World Health Organization said humanitarian pauses to facilitate the campaign last month were largely observed.
WELLINGTON, New Zealand — “It is totally, utterly unacceptable for Israel to be targeting U.N. Peacekeepers,” New Zealand’s Prime Minister Christopher Luxon told reporters in the capital on Monday.
“I think the whole world is outraged that Israel is targeting U.N. facilities. They are there on a peacekeeping mission to try and keep the peace on that border,” he said.
Palestinians look at the damage after an Israeli strike hit a tent area in the courtyard of Al Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip, Monday, Oct. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Palestinians look at the damage after an Israeli strike hit a tent area in the courtyard of Al Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip, Monday, Oct. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Palestinians look at the damage after an Israeli strike hit a tent area in the courtyard of Al Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip, Monday, Oct. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Israeli soldiers display what they say is an entrance to a Hezbollah tunnel found during their ground operation in southern Lebanon, near the border with Israel, Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Sam McNeil)
Israeli soldiers are seen during a ground operation in southern Lebanon, near the border with Israel, Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Sam McNeil)
Israeli soldiers display what they say is an entrance to a Hezbollah tunnel found during their ground operation in southern Lebanon, near the border with Israel, Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Sam McNeil)
Middle East latest: EU condemns attacks on peacekeepers in Lebanon
FILE - UN peacekeepers hold their flag, as they observe Israeli excavators attempt to destroy tunnels built by Hezbollah, near the southern Lebanese-Israeli border village of Mays al-Jabal, Lebanon, Dec. 13, 2019. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla, File)
Middle East latest: EU condemns attacks on peacekeepers in Lebanon
