Yankees' Gerrit Cole feeling 'pretty good' with diagnosis, won't throw for three to four weeks

TAMPA, Fla. — The Yankees have avoided the doomsday scenario when it comes to ace righthander Gerrit Cole, at least for now.

Cole left his Thursday meeting with orthopedic specialist Dr. Neal ElAttrache in Los Angeles feeling “pretty good,” in his words, after being diagnosed with nerve inflammation and edema (swelling) in his right elbow.

The ailments will keep Cole sidelined for three to four  weeks without throwing, he said Saturday morning. Then a roughly six-week buildup will begin (essentially a full spring training). Assuming no setbacks, that would line him up for a return somewhere around late May or early June.

Season-ending surgery, the initial fear of all involved when Cole requested and went for an MRI last Monday, currently is not indicated. 

“Best-case scenario, he wouldn’t be dealing with anything,” general manager Brian Cashman said early Saturday afternoon before the Yankees played the Blue Jays at Steinbrenner Field. “But I guess [this] is second-best-case, right?”

Cole, a serial preparer when it comes to what he always calls “the craft” of pitching, said, “I felt great during the offseason.” That continued in his early bullpen sessions and live batting-practice sessions in spring training.

But after his first exhibition appearance on March 1, Cole did not feel the way he typically does in his recovery between outings. He experienced the same sensation after a 47-pitch live batting practice session March 7. At that point, he suggested he be evaluated.

Cole had an MRI in Tampa and, after several doctors looked at the results, which showed some inflammation, he requested a trip to see ElAttrache, the Los Angeles-based doctor he’s known since his amateur days (the case with many Scott Boras clients from California).

“I’m just trying to be as thorough as possible in that situation,” Cole said. “I’m always a thorough guy, and so when this came up, I just approached it the same as I try to do everything else.”

Though Cole was fairly confident that ElAttrache would not find anything more significant in the elbow than what the initial MRI showed, there still was at least a little trepidation.

“I mean, it’s not a common experience for me,” said Cole, who is among the most durable pitchers in the sport, logging at least 200 innings in five of the last six full seasons. “I haven’t really dealt with anything like this before. Any time you’re going through something for the first time, there’s a little bit of uncertainty. But I had a lot of faith.”

Cashman, the club’s GM since 1998, wasn’t in a state of panic when Cole went for the first MRI, saying “it’s not my first rodeo” when it comes to spring training injury concerns.

But he conceded that he felt somewhat better after sitting and talking with Cole before he boarded his plane for Los Angeles.

“My interaction with him gave me a lot of comfort,” Cashman said. “I was very comfortable when I was talking to him. I might have been sleeping maybe less if it wasn’t that way, but he was walking me through his process of what his experience was, but he was still taking the mound and still throwing with the same velo and command and stuff like that. It was in between with the recovery stuff. It made me feel comfortable dealing with him. And I trust Gerrit. I really trust his knowledge of himself, his knowledge of his craft. [He said], ‘Listen, I want to do a deep dive here, just in case.’ Thankfully, he did.”

Cole said he and his team traced the issue to perhaps being a bit too strong in the early going.

“I think we’ve determined that we just got a little too hot, a little too quick in spring,” he said. “We progressed through the normal recovery cycle, but at a certain time, we didn’t get back to our baseline, which was kind of our target. At that point, it was time to see what was going on.”

It's not the worst case, as of now, but Cashman acknowledged that there will be some concern that something much worse will occur with the elbow once Cole starts throwing again.

“I certainly hope not,” Cashman said. “But that’s a general concern you have with anybody. That’s the one thing: These guys are always at risk every time they’re cocking their arm no matter what. But I feel really comfortable based on all the feedback and the experts that were involved.”