TAMPA — Gerrit Cole feels like he’s close. The Yankees’ ace, who is scheduled to throw the first pitch of the regular season in 11 days, didn’t get great results in his first spring training game Sunday, but he feels like he will be able to get them against the Red Sox on Opening Day.
“I’ve got good enough stuff to compete with, just gotta get in the zone,” Cole said. “I just control a couple of those, more of those counts will be in a good spot.”
Cole allowed three earned runs on four hits — two home runs. He walked one and struck out five. Diego Castillo, a former Yankees prospect, hammered a 94-mile an hour fastball for a two-run shot in the second inning. In the first Cole Tucker jumped on a first-pitch changeup in the third and sent it to the right-field concourse. He gave up singles to Canaan Smith-Njigba and former Yankee prospect Hoy Park in the final batter he faced on the day.
He threw 50 pitches, 29 for strikes in his two innings against the Pirates. His fastball touched 99 miles per hour and consistently sat in the 96-97 mph range.
That’s not where he would normally be this close to Opening Day, but the Yankees are comfortable with it.
“Typically this time of year when you’re 10 days away and he’s got one more start you know, he’s probably at 65-70 pitches and getting some real volume going,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “So not quite there but I feel like where he’s at in his progression — I feel like he’s in a pretty good place.”
Cole, who is one game behind the rest of the rotation, will only have one more tune-up start this spring. With spring training being shortened by the owners’ lockout, the 31-year old chose to stick with his usual ramp up to the season, meaning he threw two live batting practices before pitching in a game. So he will start Friday in Lakeland and then face the Red Sox.
The Yankees ace is coming off an up and down 2021, which ended with him getting hammered in the American League Wild Card Game by the Red Sox.
Cole came out early in 2021 as the best pitcher in the league and then became the poster boy for pitchers using illegal sticky stuff on the balls in June when MLB decided to enforce its own rules more stringently. He adjusted and regained control of his season, only to catch COVID after the All-Star break. He got back on track and then whether it was a tight hamstring or the workload (181.1 innings pitched after just 91 in 2020), Cole went into that Wild Card game with a 6.35 ERA over his last four starts.
The Red Sox pinned three runs on him and he was yanked after two innings. His agent, Scott Boras, told reporters that Cole was compromised by a hamstring issue.
“There was some compensation that was going on for sure. Trying to push through it. I think it was the right move to push through it. We were not guaranteed, or a lock in the playoffs and we needed to go out and do some more work,” Cole said of pitching hindered last October. “When it came down to the end of the season. I think it was more than it is a combination of a bunch of different factors.
“I’m not gonna make an excuse like I didn’t pitch well enough and that game, certainly not up to the standards that I have.”
It was also a very cold night, which makes it harder to grip the baseball and after MLB’s crackdown on sticky stuff, Cole was the most watched pitcher in the game. This year, the league is trying to combat it with uniform rosin throughout baseball and allowing the umpires to feel the pitchers fingers to check during the game.
Cole said he didn’t think much about MLB reinforcing the rule and likes the new rosin.
“Yeah, I like that it’s just uniform across the league,” Cole said. “Because you know what you’re getting, when you show up to the park.”
