Gerrit Cole's decision to intentionally walk Rafael Devers backfires in Yankees' loss to Red Sox

There’s giving in to a hitter and then there’s giving up.

Somewhat shockingly, Gerrit Cole did the latter with Boston’s Rafael Devers in the fourth inning Saturday afternoon.

With one out, the bases empty and the Yankees leading by a run, Cole held up four fingers as a signal to intentionally walk Devers — who came into the day 14-for-41 for a .341/.438/.951 slash line with eight homers, a double, seven walks and 19 RBIs against the reigning American League Cy Young Award winner — and waved him to first base with a flick of his wrist.

The Red Sox soon scored three runs. Cole was gone an inning later during a four-run fifth in which Devers added a two-run single to twist the knife one final time. That sent the Yankees to a 7-1 loss in front of a sellout crowd of 46,378 at the Stadium.

“Clearly, it was a mistake,” Cole said of the decision to issue the intentional walk.

It was a move that came about from discussions leading into the start between Cole, Aaron Boone and pitching coach Matt Blake. Being “more aggressive,” in Boone’s words, in using the intentional walk with Devers was suggested because of his ownership of Cole (oddly, catcher Austin Wells was not a part of those strategy talks).

Cole, typically among the first players in the clubhouse after his outings to meet with the media, didn’t talk until nearly an hour after the completion of the game on Saturday.

“Just a rough day,” he said.

Boone, who usually meets with the media within 10 minutes after a game — and often it’s even sooner than that — took about 15 minutes to enter the news conference room Saturday.

After several different explanations offered, Boone, through what at times seemed to be clenched teeth, said the club probably was guilty of “overthinking” the strategy with Devers, who also had struck out 15 times in those 41 at-bats against Cole.

“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.”

Cole had not allowed a hit entering the fourth inning. Boone did say that with the Yankees holding a 1-0 lead — courtesy of Gleyber Torres’ RBI single in the third — and Cole retiring the inning’s first batter, Jarren Duran, his preference was that Cole not intentionally walk Devers. But Cole quickly put up the four fingers and Boone said he did not want to jump from the dugout to “overrule” the pitcher.

The dye was cast, and Cole followed by walking Tyler O’Neill on a 3-and-2 pitch. Three pitches later, the Red Sox had a 3-1 lead on Masataka Yoshida’s RBI double and Wilyer Abreu’s two-run single.

Cole hit Duran and O’Neill in the fifth and allowed two-run singles by Devers and Yoshida that made it 7-1.

“I bought into the plan going into it, but afterward it was the wrong move,” said Cole, who entered the day 3-2 with a 1.58 ERA in his previous seven starts but allowed a season-high seven runs, five hits and three walks in 4 1⁄3 innings in falling to 6-5, 3.97. “I’m trying to get behind whatever we believe is the best strategy to win the game.

“He’s [Devers] cost us games in the past. As somebody that just wants to win, you’re open to anything that might put you in a better position to win . . . I just mentally and physically didn’t get the job done. They grabbed the momentum and it inspired them. They put good swings on good pitches. Ultimately, I had an opportunity to have success and I didn’t come through.”

It was the earliest bases-empty intentional walk issued by the Yankees on record, according to the YES Network. Two were issued in the sixth inning: Al Simmons in 1930 (by Roy Sherid) and Frank Howard in 1970 (by Fritz Peterson).

The AL East-leading Yankees (86-63) lost ground to the second-place Orioles, who moved within two games by beating Detroit.

Cole, who on Tuesday during a Hispanic Heritage Media Day news conference instantly named Devers as the toughest out among Latin players he’s faced in his career, struggled with more than the Red Sox third baseman on Saturday.

He hit three batters (including Devers in the first inning), and Red Sox manager Alex Cora told the Boston media he felt that was intentional, especially given the intentional pass in the fourth.

Boone, Wells and Cole especially strongly pushed back on that charge.

“He [Cora] can believe what he wants to believe,” Cole said. “But I didn’t hit him on purpose.”