Yankees' Gerrit Cole shows all his stuff in 40-pitch batting practice session
TAMPA, Fla. — Gerrit Cole is ready for his spring debut.
The righthander, after throwing a 40-pitch batting practice session Wednesday afternoon, said his next time on the mound will be Monday night at Steinbrenner Field when the Yankees play the Pirates. It lines Cole up, not that there was any mystery to it, to start the season opener March 26 in Baltimore.
“Had some fun, got the volume I wanted,” said Cole, who faced Gleyber Torres, Gary Sanchez, Gio Urshela, Miguel Andujar and Mike Tauchman in what amounted to a two-inning sim game. “Mixed in the breaking ball today, threw some good ones. Threw some good fastballs. I enjoyed working with Higgy [Kyle Higashioka] and I enjoyed the feedback from the hitters.”
Between innings and afterward Cole, known for an almost compulsive attention to detail and desire for information, chatted with some of the hitters, including Torres.
“So Gleyber was asking why I didn’t double up on the changeup because he didn’t see it, but he encouraged me to try and throw it again,” said Cole, who threw all four pitches in his repertoire (fastball, curveball, slider and changeup) after throwing just fastballs and changeups in his previous live BP session. “We were just talking about approach to right-on-right changeups and when I feel comfortable throwing it and he was telling me when hitters are susceptible to swinging at it.”
Cole, who signed a nine-year, $324 million free-agent contract in the offseason, has mostly thrown this spring to Sanchez, the starting catcher. But the Yankees want to get him familiarized with Higashioka, the expected backup.
Turns out, the two are somewhat familiar with each other, Cole said, as the pair, along with another Southern California native on the Yankees, Aaron Hicks, all played together in youth league baseball.
“I think that’s been his M.O. his entire career,” Cole said of Aaron Boone’s comment earlier in the week calling Higashioka an “elite” receiver. “It was his M.O. when we were 13 and he was catching me in scout ball. He’s a true professional. I see him having a long career in the big leagues.”
Cole was also asked about the continued comments from his new teammates blasting his former ones with the Astros, with Giancarlo Stanton the most recent weighing in Wednesday morning.
“We’re all grown guys around here and I certainly am not going to tell somebody how to think,” said Cole, an Astro in 2018 and ’19. “I don’t see it as an issue, I’m not personally offended by it, so hopefully that’s the last question I’ll have to answer about it.”
Judge throws
After not throwing at all on Tuesday, Aaron Judge played catch on Wednesday, softly tossing up to 90 feet with Tauchman.
This typically wouldn’t be grounds for a headline but given the right-shoulder soreness Judge has dealt with for the last two-plus weeks, it was marked progress and provided evidence the issue is not serious, as he and the Yankees have contended. “When I buzzed him on it real quick, he was like [I’m] game ready,’ ” Boone said. “We’ll still take it easy. I haven’t gotten a report yet, but it sounds like that [the throwing] went well and we’ll start reintroducing him to full swinging and stuff here in the next couple of days.”
Judge has not hit for about two weeks.
Erik Boland started in Newsday's sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.
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