We were bombarded most of the game with photos and anecdotes about Gerrit Cole’s close friendship with Cubs starter Jameson Taillon. While the two are certainly friends off the field, they seemed engaged in some one-upsmanship at Wrigley Field, both spinning strong starts — although the Yankee fan in me gives Cole more credit for skill and Taillon less because of how cold the New York lineup seems to be. Regardless, Taillon was the one walking away with the win in Chicago’s 2-1 salvage effort.

Cole got in trouble early, with Ian Happ leading the game off with a double. After a smart play by Anthony Volpe to cut Happ down at third on a grounder and a fly out by Seiya Suzuki, Gleyber Torres miffed what should have been an inning-ending groundout. That left two men safe and set up a long 10-pitch battle with Mike Tauchmann, ending in a walk. With two down and the bases loaded, former division rival Isaac Parades singled in a pair of runs.

The Cubbies didn’t just have their first lead of the series; they had scored for the first time all weekend. The Yankees were able to get one back quickly, with Jazz Chisholm Jr. doubling in the second and eventually being brought in on Anthony Volpe’s sac fly. But there would be no further scoring from the third inning onward.

One of the things that separates the true aces, in my opinion, is recovering from some mixture of bad play and bad luck. Cole didn’t have a good first inning and Torres didn’t help, but the Yankee ace was pretty close to perfect the rest of the way. He gave up one hit and struck out six Cubs through five more innings, for seven total on the day. He had issues with both the home plate and first base umpire, and while we can’t intellectually say that he threw a shutout, those two unearned runs also can’t really be held against him.

Aside from that double and walk in the first, Cole did everything right, and Jake Cousins continued to impress as the seventh-inning man taking over for him. The pair retired 14 consecutive Cubs at one point. We even saw Clay Holmes for the first time since that Texas disaster, throwing in a one-run game in the bottom of the eighth.

These are good pitches! He struck out two of the three batters he faced — amazing that you don’t have to worry about batted-ball luck when you do that, by the way — and other than that one foul ball, nothing is in a prime hitting location. Everything is hard to take, and hard to square up. Some people will chalk this up to him not having the pressure of the ninth inning, and maybe that’s true, but good outings are good outings and we need Holmes to have good outings.

So, then, let’s talk about the offense.

It’s been a lucky thing that the Yankees pitching has been so good this weekend. They came off of two shutouts and gave up no earned runs today — but the offense could not drive the ball with authority. They actually outhit their Cub counterparts today 6-3, but only two extra base hits — Jazz’s, and a fly ball from Giancarlo Stanton that probably should have been an out:

Anthony Rizzo walked with two outs in the ninth, setting up Duke Ellis’ pinch-run stolen base, but the tying run was left there when Volpe struck out to end it. It was the first series all season where the Yankees failed to hit a single home run, and yes, Wrigley Field can play weird with power. It was, in fact, the first Yankees series without a homer from either side in nearly a decade. Nonetheless, you’re not going to win with base hits. The top four in the Yankee lineup combined to go 2-for-11 with a walk. That’s just not enough to lock up a sweep.

The Yankees won two out of three, and you can’t ever be too upset with that result on the road against a .500-ish team like Chicago. Here’s the thing though — the goal of the next two weeks is to make that September 24-26 series with the Orioles as unimportant as possible. I don’t think the Yankees will arrive at that clash with a four- or five-game division lead, but a two- or three-game lead lessens the stress of that series, and increases the margin of error. That doesn’t really matter for our purposes, but it matters when setting rotations, deciding bullpen usage, maybe giving a day off to a star ahead of a postseason run. And remember, even a tie atop the AL East hands Baltimore the division title unless New York sweeps that set.

The Yankees started this series a half game back of the O’s, and now they’re a half-game up again after Baltimore dropped two out of three at home against Tampa Bay. That’s good, but losses like today just remind us how frustrating this second half has been. The O’s are not lighting the world on fire by any stretch; you can go through the schedule game by game and pick out spots where better relief work—or like today, a home run or two—would have built New York something of a cushion in the division.

The next chance to do that is tomorrow, with the Yankees coming home for a three-game set with the Royals and the Orioles heading up to Fenway. Although KC is in line for a Wild Card spot, New York generally feasts on the AL Central, and another big series would be just what they need to set some kind of distance between themselves and that talented Baltimore team. Carlos Rodón will look for his 15th win against Brady Singer, with a 7:05pm start time in the Bronx.