Roger Rubin: Yankees' Gerrit Cole can't arrive to the big club fast enough
Yankees pitcher Gerrit Cole during spring training at George Steinbrenner Field on Feb. 13, 2026, in Tampa, Fla. Credit: Newsday/J. Conrad Williams Jr.
Before struggling Ryan McMahon broke out with a tiebreaking two-run homer in a 4-2 victory over Kansas City before 44,244 at the Stadium on Friday night, the Yankees had lost seven of nine games and easily could have been on a nine-game losing streak had they not gotten a pair of ninth-inning comebacks to split the just-concluded four-game series against the Angels.
One didn’t exactly need a microscope to find some serious-looking flaws when the night started. Opposing hitters were batting .275 against Yankees relievers, which ranked 14th of 15 in the American League. The Yankees ranked 14th of 15 in the AL in OPS at second base, third base and catcher.
With Gerrit Cole beginning a minor-league rehab assignment with a strong outing for Double-A Somerset on Friday night and 18-game winner Carlos Rodon set to go on assignment next week, it’s not hard to envision the entire pitching staff, front to back, getting much better in a matter of weeks.
To see the hitting situation improving, one might have to squint a little and subscribe to the idea that 88% of the season remains and that the lineup will hit to its track record.
Cole looked very good against Reading, throwing 44 pitches, including 36 strikes. He allowed three runs, three hits and a walk in 4 1⁄3 innings and struck out three. He said he threw his fastball, slider, curve and changeup effectively and still had gas in the tank when he came out.
Cole allowed a two-out RBI double and a two-run homer in the second but retired the side on four pitches in both the third and fourth innings, and his fastball touched 96 mph.
“It was pretty good today — it’s going to be hard to replicate the type of adrenaline that the big leagues gives you,” he told reporters afterward.
Asked if he felt like the pitcher he used to be, he replied, “I have a lot of confidence . . . it’s hopefully on its way.”
After he won the Cy Young Award in 2023, elbow issues limited Cole to 17 starts in 2024 before he missed the entire 2025 season because of Tommy John surgery. The organization would like to build his endurance to full strength, not only 70 pitches, before returning him to the rotation.
Cole, 35, came up in an era where teams typically added 15 pitches with every rehab start, but the new way of doing things isn’t as linear or predictable.
Rodon had a less extreme elbow surgery after last season and probably requires less than a handful of starts for a rotation return. He will throw to hitters at Somerset before the Patriots play Saturday night and then will start a rehab assignment if everything goes well.
“We’re obviously very excited to get those guys back — we know how good they are when they’re well, really their entire career,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said before facing the Royals. “We know what they’re capable of, but it’s a process . . . The biggest thing right now is making sure they’re checking all the boxes and getting built up properly . . . Then when they enter back into the rotation, we get the impact that we hope and expect.”
Adding Cole and Rodon to Max Fried at the top of the rotation could create a ripple effect that runs through the entire pitching staff. Outside of closer David Bednar, roles for the relievers are still in flux. The starters who would be displaced from the current rotation could be candidates, even though Will Warren and Ryan Weathers have little major-league relief experience.
Yankees relievers allowed the Angels to score 14 runs in four games. The trend continued when Camilo Doval surrendered a tying home run by Vinnie Pasquantino in the top of the eighth on Friday.
Boone said he hopes relievers seize big roles and that, coming out of spring training, the Yankees envisioned “a lot of competition” for those roles.
The current group of relievers might not only face competition from above by the displaced starters but also from below from high-performing relievers in the minors. Yerry de los Santos and Carlos Lagrange look like pitchers who are, in Boone’s words, “pushing the envelope.”
He added, “Hopefully we’re in a position that ultimately we’re having to make difficult decisions with guys that are very capable so [Cole] and [Rodon] become part of that equation.”
One thing that would improve the Yankees’ bullpen performance is workload. The starters are averaging 16 outs per start.
Fried has averaged 20 outs per start. A full-strength Cole has a track record of going deep into games. Rodon got an average of 18 outs per start a year ago. It could mean more than 10 fewer outs from the relief corps every five games.
As Boone said, “When you got to cover a lot of innings day-in and day-out for a stretch, that can take its toll on a bullpen.”
Roger Rubin returned to Newsday in 2018 to write about high schools, colleges and baseball following 20 years at the Daily News. A Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2011, he has covered 13 MLB postseasons and 14 NCAA Final Fours.
