NEW YORK — Aaron Judge hit his major-league leading 48th homer and Gerrit Cole allowed one hit in six innings to become the fourth active pitcher to reach 150 career wins as the New York Yankees beat the Cleveland Guardians 6-0 Thursday.
Judge homered for the third straight game and is on pace to finish with 61, two years after hitting 62 to break Roger Maris’ single-season AL record. Judge homered for the sixth time in seven games, seventh time in 10 games and 13th time in 23 games.
Judge hit his latest homer when he connected on a 2-1 changeup from Cleveland starter Gavin Williams (2-6) and lifted it to the right field seats. The 360-foot drive marked the third time this season Judge homered in a third straight game.
Cole (5-2) allowed a single to Steven Kwan on his second pitch and struggled with command at times. He tied a career worst by issuing five walks, struck out two and got eight outs on the ground, including a double play by rookie Jhonkensy Noel to end the sixth.
Cole joined Justin Verlander (260), Max Scherzer (216) and Clayton Kershaw (212) and reached the milestone in his 311th start.
The Yankees had a four-run fifth after Judge drew his 16th intentional walk this season. After seeing two sliders well out of the strike zone from Nick Sandlin, Judge took his ninth intentional walk in 18 games this month to load the bases.
Austin Wells followed with a sacrifice fly and Giancarlo Stanton hit a three-run homer that just cleared the center-field fence.
Tim Hill, Luke Weaver and Michael Tonkin combined on three innings to allow zero hits and finish New York’s 10th shutout.
Williams allowed three runs and four hits in 4 1/3 innings and became the 231st different pitcher to allow a homer to Judge.
Cleveland lost for the fifth time in six games. The Guardians scored once and had five hits in the final two games of the series after scoring six times in the 12th for a 9-5 win Tuesday.
The Guardians were one-hit for the second time this season and blanked for the 13th time.
José Ramírez drew two of his three walks against Cole and stole his 30th base, becoming the first Guardian with multiple 30-30 seasons.
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