Alex Cora believes Gerrit Cole intentionally hit Rafael Devers

Was the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry reignited on Saturday?

Gerrit Cole hit Rafael Devers with a pitch and intentionally walked him on Saturday. AP Photo/Frank Franklin II

Yankees pitcher Gerrit Cole’s struggles against Red Sox slugger Rafael Devers are well-documented over the pair’s careers.

Things seemed to reach a boiling point after Cole’s start versus Boston at Yankee Stadium on Saturday.

In the first at-bat between Cole and Devers, Cole hit Devers with a 91-mile-per-hour cutter on his second pitch to the hitter. This didn’t seem like an issue at the time, but as the game progressed, the Red Sox later believed the HBP was intentional by Cole.

The next time Cole faced Devers came in the fourth inning when New York was up 1-0. Cole and the Yankees opted to intentionally walk Devers with one out and nobody on base.

Watch that moment play out here:

This plan almost instantly backfired for New York as Masataka Yoshida tied the game at one run apiece with a RBI double to score Devers. Then, Wilyer Abreu followed up with a two-run single to give Boston a 3-1 lead.

In the fifth frame, during Devers’s third at-bat against Cole, the hitter notched a two-run single off of the hurler to extend Boston’s lead.

Watch Devers’s hit here:

The Yankees didn’t score another run the rest of the day and Boston ultimately won 7-1.

After the game, Red Sox manager Alex Cora was visibly upset while talking to reporters. He went off on Cole, expressing his belief that the pitcher meant to hit Devers in the first inning to avoid pitching to him. Cora said he was certain this was the case following the intentional walk in the fourth inning.

“I wasn’t surprised at all because I felt like the first at-bat, he hit him on purpose. He doesn’t wanna face him. That’s the bottom line. He told us with the intentional walk, that he first at-bat he hit him,” Cora said. “We took exception to that because it has been clear he didn’t want to face him, so that first at-bat, now after the intentional walk, we were like, ‘OK. That’s what happened.’

“They can say whatever they want. The intentional walk was loud and clear: ‘I don’t wanna face him.’ The second pitch of the game against Raffy, you see it. It was intentional. I’m not gonna back off. It was intentional. … He decided not to face (Devers) today. Well, that’s his decision, right? So, I don’t know.”

New York manager Aaron Boone refuted Cora’s claims postgame. Boone said there was no intent behind the hit-by-pitch.

“He definitely wasn’t throwing at him. If you look, today Raffy was right on the line and (Cole) threw a cutter trying to get it in there and didn’t. I don’t think there was any intent from Gerrit there,” Boone said. “We’re not playing that kind of a game.”

Cole echoed his manager’s sentiment and denied Cora’s allegations while speaking with reporters postgame.

“I didn’t throw at Devers in the first inning. He can believe what he wants to believe, but I didn’t hit him on purpose,” Cole said.

Devers reacted to the situation after the game while speaking with the media through a translator.

“He caught me by surprise. I didn’t expect that from a future Hall of Famer,” he said. “To say it some way, he panicked a little bit.”

The Red Sox-Yankees rivalry has settled down in recent years. It’s not as fiery as it was back in 2004, but perhaps what occurred on Saturday reignited the flame a little bit.