Gerrit Cole struck out 10 before fatiguing, while Mike Ford, Giancarlo Stanton and Aaron Judge all homered, powering the Yankees to an 8-4 victory over the Rays in the first game of a seven-inning doubleheader on Saturday at Tropicana Field.

? Box score

Cole remained undefeated in four starts as a Yankee as he scattered six hits and walked a batter over 4 2/3 innings for his 26th consecutive start without a loss, a streak which dates to last season and is the fifth longest in history.

? Yanks' tempers hot, bats cool in nightcap

¡°I wasn¡¯t able to finish the outing the way we wanted to, but there was some good improvement across the board, so I¡¯ll just try to take that,¡± Cole said. ¡°Even with pitches where we executed two or three times in a row to start the at-bat, we just never got the popout or the groundout or the fly ball.¡±

Ji-Man Choi stroked an RBI double and Jos¨¦ Mart¨ªnez slugged a two-run homer off Cole, who showcased a sizzling fastball at speeds up to 98.3 mph and finished one out shy of qualifying for a victory. Cole said that he felt that his location was ¡°crisp¡± until the final inning.

¡°I made a little tweak with my delivery, staying over my legs a little better,¡± Cole said. ¡°I thought that increased a little bit of the deception and allowed me to get through the baseball at the end, really starting to nail my spin axis. At times, it's been a little inconsistent. Today we were really repeating for the most part until a few pitches towards the end.¡±

Cole outdueled fellow flame-thrower Tyler Glasnow in a rematch of Game 5 of the 2019 American League Division Series. The victory was the Yankees¡¯ first in their last six games at Tropicana Field, dating to last season.

¡°I thought he was really good,¡± Yankees manager Aaron Boone said of Cole. ¡°Credit to them, they made him work enough and really drove his count up. They were able to get a guy on base it seemed like every inning, but I thought he was pretty sharp overall for not being able to obviously get through five.¡±

Ford opened the scoring in the third inning by connecting for his first home run of the year, a two-run shot off Glasnow projected at 437 feet by Statcast. After a pair of walks and a strikeout, Gio Urshela added a two-run double that chased Glasnow, who was touched for four runs and five hits over 2 2/3 innings.

¡°If you look at the whole year, we've done a really good job on a lot of different fronts offensively,¡± Ford said. ¡°It's a scary lineup. So whenever I get in there, I¡¯m just trying to contribute and maybe be a little spark plug.¡±

Stanton extended the Yankees¡¯ lead in the fifth inning with a solo home run off reliever Sean Gilmartin, Stanton¡¯s third long ball of the season. After the Rays pulled within two in the fifth, Judge struck back in the sixth inning with his Major League-leading eighth homer, a two-run blast off Gilmartin.

¡°It's kind of what you expect from him,¡± Ford said of Judge. ¡°He's such an intimidating figure when he gets in the box that you think it can happen on any pitch. Just personally, him being a friend, it's great to see him get off to the start that he is. With him being healthy, that's what he can do.¡±