{"id":167497,"date":"2026-03-18T18:22:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T18:22:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/167497\/"},"modified":"2026-03-18T18:22:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T18:22:12","slug":"yankees-gerrit-cole-throws-scoreless-inning-in-spring-debut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/167497\/","title":{"rendered":"Yankees’ Gerrit Cole throws scoreless inning in spring debut"},"content":{"rendered":"

TAMPA, Fla. — Gerrit Cole<\/a> returned to a mound to pitch in a game after a 377-day absence and threw a scoreless first inning Wednesday for the New York Yankees<\/a> in an exhibition game against the Boston Red Sox<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Cole threw 10 pitches, seven for strikes, including six four-seam fastballs that averaged 97.1 mph, ranging from 98.7 mph 96.1 mph. He threw two sliders and a pair of knuckle-curves.<\/p>\n

His first pitch, a 96.6 mph fastball to Braiden Ward, was bunted to the right side for a single as Cole slid toward the base trying to field it. Ward stole second, held as Kristian Campbell<\/a> flied out and was caught stealing third by catcher Austin Wells<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Jason Delay<\/a> lined a 1-2 fastball into left for a single, and Nathan Hickey<\/a> grounded out on a first-pitch knuckle-curve.<\/p>\n

Pitching with a slight beard — the Yankees relaxed their facial hair policy last year — Cole showed his altered windup, in which he puts his hands over his head.<\/p>\n

A 35-year-old right-hander, Cole had Tommy John surgery on March 11 last year with Los Angeles Dodgers<\/a> team physician Dr. Neal ElAttrache.<\/p>\n

His last official outing was in Game 5 of the 2024 World Series that Oct. 30. The six-time All-Star pitched in two spring training games in 2025, the last on March 6.<\/p>\n

Cole threw his first bullpen of spring training on Feb. 13 and faced hitters for the first time seven days later.<\/p>\n

Yankees manager Aaron Boone projects Cole to make his season debut in late May or early June.<\/p>\n

Cole’s 2024 season debut was delayed until June 19 because of nerve irritation and edema in his right elbow. He went 8-5 with a 3.41 ERA in 17 starts for New York and was 1-0 with a 2.17 ERA in five postseason starts.<\/p>\n

Cole is signed to a $324 million, nine-year contract through 2028. He has a 153-80 career record and 3.18 ERA over 317 starts with Pittsburgh (2013-17), Houston (2018-19) and the Yankees (starting in 2020).<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2026 ESPN Internet Ventures. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla. — Gerrit Cole returned to a mound to pitch in a game after a 377-day absence…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":167498,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[68735,68734,3080,20,9,11,10,321,12],"class_list":["post-167497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-68735","tag-cole-gerrit","tag-espn","tag-mlb","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-yankees","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167497\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/167498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}