That sound you hear is New York Yankees fans taking a sigh of relief. Yankees ace Gerrit Cole will miss one to two months with a right elbow injury.
Cole has already undergone an MRI, a CT scan, and x-rays and will undergo more tests in Los Angeles. The tests come after Cole reported discomfort in his elbow.While there’s no exact timeline of how long he will be out, Cole has been ruled out for Opening Day and will start the season on the injured list. That will snap a streak of four consecutive Opening Day starts for the ace.
“We’re still in the gathering of information, and then everyone’s got to weigh in to determine exactly what we have,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “Until everyone weighs in, out of respect to Gerrit, I’m not going to put a timeline on anything when there’s still information to gather and they’ve still got to put it together.”
Boone also said that the ace pitcher hasn’t bounced as expected in between outings.
“His recovery, before getting to his next start, has been more akin to what he feels during the season, when he's making 100 pitches," Boone said. "When he's at 45 [pitches] and building to 55, he usually doesn't have the recovery issues he's having.”
Cole has made only one start this spring, on March 1. On March 7 he pitched under simulated conditions and threw 47 pitches. While Cole being out isn’t good news it could have been worse. If Cole was going to be out for the whole season or about half a season, then the Yankees would have had to try to get Blake Snell or Jordan Montgomery. Luckily the Yanks don’t have to do that.
With Cole on the sidelines expect Marcus Stroman to be the Yankees starter on Opening Day. Hopefully the results of the additional tests that are being done on Cole will be good and won’t make things worse.
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