New York Yankees ace Gerrit Cole will make his season debut on Wednesday after starting the season on the injured list due to an elbow injury.
It’s a big match. Cole, 33, will take the mound for the Yankees against the Baltimore Orioles, with the two teams locked in a battle atop the AL East. Yankees manager Aaron Boone announced Cole’s status on Monday.
Cole, a six-time All-Star and two-time ERA champion, won his first career Cy Young award last season after posting an AL-best 2.63 ERA and 0.981 WHIP with 222 strikeouts and 48 walks in 209 innings pitched.
He started this season on the injured list after suffering nerve inflammation and swelling in his throwing elbow. He avoided Tommy John surgery and has been preparing for rehabilitation in recent weeks.
The injury is a rare case for Cole, who has made at least 17 starts in each of his 11 MLB seasons, not including the pandemic-shortened 2020 campaign. He has pitched more than 181 innings in each of the previous six non-pandemic seasons and more than 200 innings in five of those seasons.
Cole returns to a Yankees team that thrived in his absence. New York entered Monday with the best record in baseball at 50-24. The 47-24 Orioles are tied for the second-best record in the sport and are just 1.5 games behind the Yankees in the AL East.
Cole’s return gives the Yankees an edge in the hotly contested race that could last until the end of the season. He looked strong in his rehab starts, striking out 19 and walking zero in 12 1/3 innings. He has also thrown from the mound at Yankee Stadium during pre-game warmups.
If Cole can stay healthy, baseball’s most competitive division at the top has become significantly more difficult.
