SWB RAILRIDERS: Cole has another strong rehab start

MOOSIC — Gerrit Cole moved another step closer to returning to the New York Yankees with a strong rehab start Saturday night for the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders at PNC Field.

Facing the Syracuse Mets before a crowd of 7,814, the righthander and 2023 American League Cy Young Award winner worked 5.1 innings and allowed one run and six hits with one walk and six strikeouts. He threw 86 pitches (56 for strikes) and topped out with a four-seam fastball at 99.6 mph as he continues to work his way back from reconstructive elbow surgery March 11, 2025.

Long after Cole exited, Syracuse rallied to win in 10 innings, 6-2.

“Felt really good,” Cole said. “Some good velocity tonight, some good locations. Some good quick innings and some innings that tested us.”

RailRiders manager Shelley Duncan thought Cole looked really good.

“He was aggressive in the strike zone, had command of all his pitches,” Duncan said. “His changeup looked really good, fastball had a lot of life on it. He was doing what Gerrit does best. He was hitting spots, working his pitches off each other, making it hard for the opposing hitters. It was a lot of fun watching him.”

Cole retired the first seven batters he faced, including strikeouts of Ryan Clifford to end the top of the first and Cristian Pache to begin the third. But Jackson Cluff and Kevin Parada followed with singles. After getting Nick Morabito to pop out, Ji Hwan Bae hit a ground ball wide of first base that Ernesto Martinez Jr. fielded and flipped to Cole covering. However, Bae beat Cole to the bag and was safe on an infield single. Cluff never stopped running on the play and headed for home. Cole turned and threw to the plate, but Cluff just got his hand in under the tag of catcher Ali Sanchez. Cole struck out Clifford to end the inning and it was during that at-bat that he threw a 99.6-mph four-seam fastball.

“A guy scored from second base on a ground ball to the first baseman,” Cole said. “I made a really good play overall, but they’re really fast. I anticipated him coming around to home and made a strong throw. But we just didn’t convert an out or prevent a run. It was a little frustrating.”

With one out in the fourth, Eric Wagaman doubled. Yonny Hernandez followed with a single to left. Wagaman tried to score, but Jonathan Ornelas threw him out at the plate. That was big because Pache followed with a single that sent Hernandez to third. But Cole stranded the runners by striking out Cluff to end the inning.

He opened the Syracuse fifth with strikeouts of Parada looking and Morabito swinging, then got ahead of Bae 0-2. But he threw four straight balls to Bae, including another 99-mph four-seam fastball on ball one.

“I was repeating the changeup a few times,” Cole said. “For the most part that was good. That, unfortunately, was one package of two in a row where I lost the zone a little bit and then didn’t make a good pitch 3-2.”

Clifford flew out to right field for the final out and leave Cole at 83 pitches through five innings. In each of his first five starts, his pitch count has progressed — 44 on April 17, 52 on April 23, 60 on April 29, 69 on May 5 and 77 on May 10.

There was much speculation whether or not Cole was done after five innings, but he came back out for the sixth. He retired Christian Arroyo on a groundout to third on one pitch, then got ahead 0-2 on Wagaman. That’s when Duncan came out of the dugout to pull Cole after 86 pitches.

“It was great to see him go five innings and a third. It was really good,” Sanchez said. “He was commanding the fastball, it was good velo on it. The two-seam was moving good. The sinker was good. Everything was working really good. Curveball, slider, changeup to lefties. He threw some good ones. He mixed it to righties, too. It was a great job by him.”

Yankees manager Aaron Boone has told reporters in New York that Cole likely will need one more rehab start before returning to the majors.

Whether that start will be with the RailRiders again remains to be seen.

“I’m sure Cash (GM Brian Casheman), Boonie, the whole group will talk about his outing here along with Gerrit and make a decision,” Duncan said. “We’ll be ready if it is here. If not, we’ll have the privilege of watching him in the big leagues.”

One thing the Yankees won’t do is rush Cole back with Max Fried recently being placed on the injured list and expected to miss at least a month with an elbow bone bruise.

“That’s a challenge, but my job is to stay focused on my progression and my start from week to week,” Cole said. “Max obviously is an integral part of our rotation and our team. It’s unfortunate, but thankfully we have good depth in order to cover him in the interim. In situations like this, it’s just important to remain focused on what their job is. I fall into that category as well.”

Cole admits he is itching to return to the majors. He pointed out that when you include the offseason following the 2024 season, it has been more than 17 months that he has pitched in the bigs.

Through it all, he has learned he is capable of being patient, although he laughed when he said he has to work at it.

He added the biggest challenge is simply getting back into the swing of things.

“Knowing what to do with runners on second and third. Getting back into holding runners, PFPs, game environments and having to execute pitches through those high-stress situations,” Cole said.

“I feel like we’ve executed one step at a time and it’s been going really well. I just take it week to week. There’s always something to work on. I’m never really satisfied.”

As for the game, Sanchez’s two-out, two-run home run in the second inning put the RailRiders in front, 2-0. After Syracuse scored off Cole in the third, it stayed a 2-1 game until the eighth when Arroyo’s RBI single off Carson Coleman tied the score and forced extra innings.

In the top of the 10th, the Mets struck for four runs on a RBI single by Morabito, RBI double by Arroyo, a wild pitch and RBI infield single by Hernandez.