Gerrit Cole, Yankees weather the storm with win over Twins to snap seven-game skid

The Yankees looked differently, played differently and found a different result against a club that sure felt familiar. Maybe it was a lineup that looked far more whole, even without Aaron Judge.Join Post Sports+ for exciting subscriber-only features, including real-time texting with Greg Joyce about the inside buzz on the Yankees.

Trent Grisham announced his return from the injured list by stroking a leadoff home run while Ryan McMahon doubled and fought for a nine-pitch walk.The two, who had been sidelined during the entirety of the club’s slide, scored or knocked in all five of the team’s runs. Maybe it was the passing storm with heavy winds and a sky that opened up after the top of the third, the downpour perhaps washing away the slop and grime that the Yankees had not been able to shake. Maybe it was Gerrit Cole, one of the game’s great competitors, trading in gas for guts to bridge a 53-minute rain delay and find a way to grind through five solid innings. Or maybe it was simply an opponent that seems always willing to take a punch when the Yankees’ right hook needs work. Whatever the cause, the Yankees looked more like the Yankees in snapping a season-worst, seven-game skid by quieting the Twins, 5-2, on Friday night in front of 45,104, many of whom brushed off the rain and remained on a fireworks night in The Bronx. The Yankees (49-38) recorded their first victory since June 24, halting the hard-to-fathom skid by scoring their most runs since June 19 — they had not even plated five runs in a dozen straight contests.For the first time in weeks, they looked like the team that had seemed destined to run away with the AL East. Absent for three weeks with a hamstring strain, Grisham was back in center field and atop the order, going to one knee to muscle out his ninth home run of his season in the first inning to tie the game at 1-1, the start of what would be a big night. McMahon, back from a throat infection, returned to third base — ma...