Gerrit Cole to open second half for Yankees

It was Schlittler’s shortest start of the season. In fact, two of the right-hander’s four shortest outings of the season have been in his last four starts. He may be tiring a little bit since he’s on track to easily outpace his career high in innings, but it’s far more likely that he just had an off day. His velocity looked good, but he threw just 61 percent of his pitches for strikes, far below his season average. We’d expect him to bounce back this weekend against the Braves.

The only run Cole allowed came in the fourth on an RBI single by Michael Busch. The right-hander did have some control issues with three free passes, but he worked around them with five strikeouts in another impressive outing for the 35-year-old. Cole has allowed just one run over his last two starts, and he’ll take a 3.42 ERA into a scheduled start against Atlanta. This isn’t vintage Cole, but it’s certainly effective.

Weathers wasn’t as impressive as Sean Burke today, but he wound up with the better end result, completing one more scoreless frame than the White Sox’s right-hander. Weathers struck out four and walked three. He allowed nine hard-hit balls, but just two produced hits and one was a double-play ball. This makes three times this year that Weathers has completed seven scoreless innings, though he’s only gotten a win for one of those. He remains 4-7 with a 3.99 ERA through 21 starts. He’ll face the Cardinals next.

Schlittler was utterly dominant over the first six innings of this start. To that point, he had faced just one batter over the minimum and thrown only 77 pitches. It looked as if he’d easily cruise through seven or even eight innings if things broke right. Then, Munetaka Murakami fought hard for a seven-pitch walk to start the seventh and Schlittler plunked Miguel Vargas on the very next pitch. Andrew Benintendi hit a run-scoring double two batters later that chased Schlittler from the game and set the table for a huge comeback win by the White Sox. Nevertheless, he forced 18 swings-and-misses in yet another fantastic start. Rather than deploying his usual fastball-forward repertoire, Schlittler threw a season-high 20% curveballs. It was up to 88 mph – three ticks higher than its season average – and forced seven whiffs on eight swings. It’s just another potentially lethal wrinkle Schlittler can add to his game on the way to the American League Cy Young award. He’s scheduled for a two-start week coming up against the Cardinals and Braves.

Cole struck out seven over those six scoreless, and he allowed just four hits and a pair of walks while throwing 60-of-99 pitches for strikes. The 35-year-old veteran didn’t have the same swing-and-miss stuff he did against the Pirates when he whiffed 11 in his previous outing, but he was even more effective while lowering his ERA to 3.57 in the process. Cole has not pitched like a fantasy ace for the majority of 2026, but he has over his last few outings. He’s scheduled to face the Cubs on Sunday and will look to continue this impressive run.

Weathers, whose velocity was up 1-1.5 mph from his season averages tonight, has his July victory after also getting one apiece in April, May and June. He deserves a little better than a 4-7 record for his 4.25 ERA in 20 starts, and the Yankees have gone 10-10 with him on the mound. He seems to be clearly ahead of Will Warren in the Yankees’ thoughts right now, which might prove important when Carlos Rodón is ready to come off the injured list. He’ll face the White Sox next week.

It was another dominant outing for Schlittler, who gave Phillies hitters fits all night on the way to his second double-digit strikeout performance of the season. Schlittler’s 12 strikeouts were just one off from the 13 he tallied in June against the Reds. He made it through the first three innings without allowing a hit and never allowed more than one batter to reach base in any of his 7 1/3 innings of work. Now sitting on 10 wins for the season, Schlittler will look to pick up his 11th win of the season on Wednesday on the road against the White Sox.

Cole bested his previous season high in strikeouts by one. He got 21 whiffs on 53 swings and recorded eight strikeouts with his fastball, which had a 45 percent CSW on the day. Cole was in line for the loss when he threw his final pitch, but the Yankees came back and scored three runs in the bottom of the seventh to tie things up. As a result, Cole remained 3-5 with a 3.92 ERA and an excellent 66/12 K/BB ratio through 62 innings. He’ll likely face the White Sox on Monday.

Weathers looked like he was going to be on the hook for a loss after giving up a go-ahead homer to rookie slugger Esmerlyn Valdez in the third inning. Fortunately, New York’s offense rose to the occasion and backed him with a touchdown and a two-point conversion to overcome the early deficit. He posted five strikeouts and issued two walks. He’s worked past the fifth inning just once in his last four starts and has allowed 15 runs over 15 2/3 innings during that span. He’ll face a tough test with a challenging road matchup against the Phillies on Saturday to close out a two-start week.

Schlittler struck out eight and walked none today. He allowed six hits but just four hard-hit balls. Against another lineup, he probably would have delivered a quality start. The Dodgers, though, put three hits together during a two-run third and forced him to run up his pitch count, resulting in the early exit. Schlittler will likely make his next start Friday against the Phillies.