Welcome to The Pregame Lineup, a weekday newsletter that gets you up to speed on everything you need to know for today’s games, while catching you up on fun and interesting stories you might have missed. Today's edition is brought to you by David Adler. Since this is Memorial Day Weekend, we'll be back on Tuesday.
It's been 569 days since Gerrit Cole last pitched in a Major League game.
Well, today's the day. The Yankees ace and 2023 AL Cy Young winner is finally returning to the mound.
Cole will make his long-awaited 2026 season debut as the Bronx Bombers host the MLB-best Rays in a rivalry showdown at Yankee Stadium (7:05 p.m. ET, MLB.TV).
Cole's last game was on Oct. 30, 2024 -- that was the deciding Game 5 of the 2024 World Series, when the Dodgers rallied to defeat the Yankees and win the first of their back-to-back championships the last two years.
Cole missed all of last season after undergoing Tommy John surgery in March of 2025. But now, after a year-plus of recovery, every box has been checked. The Cole Train is back in the big leagues.
We have five things to watch in Cole's return to the Yankees, courtesy of MLB.com's Jason Catania. Let's focus on three of them here:
1) Can he bring the heat?
Cole touched 99.6 mph in his final rehab start at Triple-A. Maybe the No. 1 thing we'll be watching is: Can the 35-year-old bring his old heat tonight?
2) Will he have his elite command?
Cole is a six-time All-Star who knows how to put a baseball where he wants it. He doesn't just have overpowering stuff, he also has great command. But after Tommy John surgery, command is often the last thing to come back for a pitcher.
3) How will his new windup look?
Cole has been experimenting with a new, hands-over-the-head windup in his rehab process -- a windup in the style of Max Scherzer. We want to see that new windup in action. And will it affect Cole's stuff? His command? Both? Neither?
Whatever the results tonight, though, we're just happy to see one of baseball's true aces for the first time in a year and a half.
No comments:
Post a Comment