The box score shows that Gerrit Cole had a pretty solid Opening Day outing against the Toronto Blue Jays. The Yankees ace allowed two earned runs on just five hits while striking out eight over 5.1 innings.

But with one out in the top of the sixth inning and the Yankees leading 2-1, Cole made one of his few mistakes on the day, hanging a slider that Teoscar Hernadez demolished over the left field fence to tie the game, which the Blue Jays went on to win 3-2 in 10 innings.

After walking Vladimir Guerrero Jr. next, Cole’s day was done, and that one pitch was still haunting him after the game.

“A lot of good out there. I thought for the most part we did a nice job. I just want that slider back,” Cole said.

“It was a bad pitch and then I got into the hole against Vladdy, who worked it well. The last fastball was not totally competitive. I didn’t even really pressure a take on him. I just wanted to finish a little better and obviously to have held the lead there.”

In all, Cole threw 97 pitches over his 5.1 innings, as the Jays lineup made him work. He also didn’t have his sharp slider that is normally his wipeout pitch. Instead, he mixed in more changeups than he typically does in his starts.

“There was a bit of hit or miss with the slider today. There was really good ones and then some poor ones. Got away with a few until Teoscar,” Cole said. “So, I thought the changeup was a good mix there in some situations where maybe normally we would have leaned on something like the slider, but I wasn’t totally executing it. It bought us a couple of strikes I thought.”

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