Cole lasted just 1.2 innings on a frigid night in Detroit, walking five times, tying a career-best

Gerrit Cole struggled to find the right words to characterize his performance to members of the media Tuesday night at his locker in the visiting clubhouse at Comerica Park.

Earlier in the day, the Yankees ace was relieved after pitching just 1.2 innings, the shortest start of his major league career.

New York would eventually win the game, aided by 7.1 shutout frames from the Yankees’ bullpen, but Cole’s frustration remained.

“This game is obviously pretty disappointing,” Cole told reporters.

Cole completely lost control of the strike zone in the second after striking out the side in the first.

Cole faced seven batters in the frame, beginning with a base hit up the middle by Miguel Cabrera. He walked four of them and threw 46 pitches in all—the most he’s ever thrown in a single inning.

Detroit scored two earned runs in that inning. Cole walked in a run with the bases loaded, and Willi Castro was removed from the game following an 11-pitch at-bat. The other came on a Robbie Grossman sacrifice fly.

Cole responded with “four-letter words” when asked what was going through his head when he watched manager Aaron Boone emerge from the first-base dugout, calling for the bullpen.

Cole was anxious to make his third start of the season, having previously stated that he was ready to build on his prior outings and was primed to pitch deeper into games with a more liberal pitch count. Cole had yet to throw more than 85 pitches in a game this season due to an abbreviated spring.

Cole, on the other hand, pitched just 68 pitches. This was not due to pitch count constraints. It was due to his failure to intimidate hitters.

“I think he just lost the strike zone a little bit,” Boone said after the 4-2 victory. “Probably got a little bit out of his rhythm. Though he was pretty sharp actually in the first inning and then the Willi Castro at-bat where he actually got ahead of them and started spoiling a lot of pitches and then eventually lost him. Was just missing around the zone a little bit and then started spraying his fastball a little bit.”

For the latest International News Follow BOL News on Google News. Read more on Latest International News on oldsite.bolnews.com