Some ballgames get decided by home runs. This one, at least for a few seconds, got decided by whoever could get to a baseball floating above the pitcher's mound without running into a teammate. The Yankees rolled into Chicago building a 3-0 lead over the White Sox, and fans were locked in from first pitch.
A fan's snapshot from the road trip to Rate Field set the scene before first pitch.
Once the game got going, the story wasn't the scoreboard, it was the defense. With Yankees up 3-0 and Gerrit Cole on the mound, a routine-looking popup near the dirt turned into a near-disaster when catcher Kyle Higashioka and third baseman Oswaldo Cabrera both drifted in on the same ball and nearly collided going up for it, with Cole watching the whole thing unfold a few feet away.
Higashioka and Cabrera both converge on the pop fly near the mound, leaving Cole to just watch it happen.
The internet, naturally, ran with the joke that Cole basically had to catch his own pop-up because his infielders couldn't sort out who had it. It's not literally true, he didn't glove that particular ball, but it captured the vibe of a defense that briefly forgot how communication works. Good thing for New York is Cole has actually been fielding his position well lately, including snagging a comebacker or foul pop of his own earlier in the same start.
Cole handles the ball on the mound during his outing, with the scoreboard showing the Yankees up 3-0.
There's a running bit among pitchers about tallying their own fly-ball and comebacker catches over a season, and if that pool exists, Cole should be feeling good about his account right now. He's in the middle of a bounce-back stretch after returning from elbow surgery back in late May, carrying a 3.92 ERA and 66 strikeouts on the year and having allowed three earned runs or fewer in six of his nine starts since coming back. The version of Cole on the mound in Chicago looked like the guy who's quietly turned his season around after a rough spring.
Elsewhere in the lineup, there was some low-key chatter about Jasson Dominguez and the way he's been using the whole field from the right side, going with pitches the other way through open holes rather than trying to pull everything. It's the kind of detail evaluators love to see from a young hitter still figuring out who he is at the plate.
A fan zeroed in on Dominguez's approach from the right side, going with the pitch instead of yanking it.
I don't know man, there's something about Dominguez hitting from the right side and going with a pitch the opposite way through an open hole.
None of it changes the standings by itself, a weird defensive sequence and a solid Cole start are just one night in a long summer. But for a Yankees team trying to stack quality starts behind a healthy ace, moments like this, chaotic, funny, and ultimately harmless, are exactly the kind of thing you want to be laughing about instead of sweating over.