Yankees 9, Diamondbacks 2: Rice's 39th and Cole's 162nd in Phoenix

Five men on, a 5-0 first, and a night without Judge

September 18, 2026 - Phoenix - The first five Yankees reached against Eduardo Rodriguez at Chase Field. Paul Goldschmidt walked. Cody Bellinger singled. Heliot Ramos walked. Ben Rice walked Goldschmidt home. Amed Rosario singled Bellinger home. George Lombard Jr. singled through the left side and the inning was 5-0.

The New York Yankees beat the Arizona Diamondbacks 9-2. Hours earlier they learned Aaron Judge was headed back to the injured list with a right calf strain. The MLB recap said he is slated to go on the IL Saturday and could miss the rest of the regular season. Rice, per that recap: "It's a tough blow for us to take. We were missing him for a long time, so this one is especially hard to swallow. But we've got no choice but to just keep playing hard and keep doing our thing."

Roof closed. 74 degrees. First pitch 6:40 p.m. Attendance 41,910. The game lasted 2 hours, 51 minutes. New York had eight hits and still scored nine. Arizona had seven and scored two.

Carroll cut it to 5-2. Rice and Lombard put it away.

Corbin Carroll homered to right in the second, Geraldo Perdomo scoring with him. 5-2. His 22nd. That was Arizona's night on offense. Gerrit Cole did not let the rest of the order turn it into a series.

Rice hit his 39th in the third, a fly to left-center. 6-2. The ESPN recap called it a team lead. Lombard hit his fourth in the sixth, a fly to left. 7-2. The seventh was messier and still scored. Ryan McMahon reached on Pavin Smith's throwing error, Goldschmidt scoring. Spencer Jones forced McMahon at second, Ramos scoring. 9-2.

Rodriguez (15-7) needed 45 pitches to get three outs in the first, a career high for an inning, the ESPN recap said. He lasted 5 1/3. Five hits. Seven runs. Four walks. Five strikeouts. Two homers. The ESPN recap called it arguably his worst start of the year, and it arrived with Arizona five games out of the last National League wild card and eight to play. Zac Gallen threw three innings in relief. Taylor Clarke got two outs. None of that fixed the first.

Carroll finished 2-for-4 with the homer, a double, and both RBI. Perdomo had two hits and a walk. Nolan Arenado had two singles. The middle of the order (Ketel Marte, Gabriel Moreno, Lars Nootbaar) went quiet against a Yankees staff that had already decided the game before the second inning ended.

Cole's 162nd, and a needle that moved

Cole (9-9) threw six innings. Four hits. Two runs. Zero walks. Six strikeouts. Ninety pitches. The two runs were Carroll's homer. The MLB recap said he had given up seven homers over his previous two starts, the most he had ever allowed in a two-game span, and that most of the worry lived outside the clubhouse. Manager Aaron Boone, per that recap, had already said Cole should expect a start if New York lands in the American League Wild Card Series.

"I don't think we did a perfect job tonight, but I think we moved the needle in the right direction," Cole said, per the MLB recap. "I think there's still some meat on the bone there. It's not easy, but it's necessary. It's the big leagues."

The win was the 162nd of his career. The ESPN recap said that is one more than Mike Moore, picked first by Seattle in 1981, and that Cole was selected first by Pittsburgh in 2011. David Price is third at 157. Ryan Yarbrough, Michael Fulmer, and Luis Gil finished the last three innings without a run.

Rice went 2-for-3 with the homer, a triple, two walks, two runs, and two RBI. Lombard went 2-for-4 with the homer and three RBI. Goldschmidt walked, singled, and scored twice. Ramos walked twice and scored twice. That is how an eight-hit night becomes 9-2 when the first inning does not let the other starter breathe.

Four games in the East, five in the West, nine to play

New York is 89-64. The club has already clinched a playoff spot. The ESPN recap said the Yankees have won eight of 10. The MLB recap had them 11 of 15 and four games behind the Tampa Bay Rays in the American League East. Saturday is Cam Schlittler. Judge will be on the IL by then. The rest of this week is a test of whether 5.1 runs a night with him, the number the MLB recap cited, can be something close without him.

Arizona is 80-74. Three straight losses. Five games out of the last wild card. The Padres also won Friday. The season-ending series with San Diego is eight days away and already looks less like a decider than it did a week ago.

AthX Engine after the baseball

AthX Engine (our projection and scoring system) put New York at 19 team fantasy points, second on the slate. Rice had 13 hitting FP. Lombard had 9. Cole had 18 pitching FP. Arizona finished at minus-6.

Fantasy points measure the night under platform scoring rules. Share prices also move with traders through dynamic pricing. They are related. They are not the same number.

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*Sources: ESPN recap and box score, MLB.com Gameday wrap, MLB.com schedule, and AthX Engine scoring. Information only; not financial advice.*