Gerrit Cole overrules Aaron Boone in gutsy, winning outing for Yankees

For much of the time Gerrit Cole has been back in the Yankees rotation after recovering from Tommy John surgery, the team had been clicking.Now, they’re still without Aaron Judge in the lineup and Carlos Rodón has joined Max Fried on the IL.Join Post Sports+ for exciting subscriber-only features, including real-time texting with Greg Joyce about the inside buzz on the Yankees.

And then there’s the seven-game losing streak they dragged into Friday night.Not surprisingly, then, Cole was less concerned about whether he had pitched his best or been at his sharpest as against Minnesota, with the team trying to right itself.“Screw coming back,” Cole said of what his performance — five innings of two-run ball, while pitching through a nearly one-hour rain delay — meant personally.“We needed this win today.

… You’ve got to do hard stuff in this league sometimes.Sometimes it’s not fun.

It’s not fun to sit around for an hour and 20 minutes, throwing bullpens, but it’s what was needed.We needed a little bit more tonight and thankfully, we got it done.”In a 5-2 win over Minnesota, Cole, making his eighth start back since undergoing Tommy John surgery nearly a year and a half ago, willed his way through five innings.The game was stopped by an oncoming storm as soon as Cole struck out Brooks Lee to end the top of the third.The right-hander — after the game was stopped for 53 minutes — stayed in the game for two more innings.He said he threw four simulated innings of about eight-to-15 pitches every 10 minutes during the delay and Aaron Boone said he listened to his ace and “the pitching guys” in opting to let Cole continue in the fourth.Cole allowed two hits and a run in the fourth and Boone intended to pull him following that inning — with the Yankees up by one run and Cole at 78 pitches.“He definitely was going to take me out and I definitely wasn’t coming out,” Cole said.As Boone added, Cole, “was not having it, which was grea...