![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Corey-Collins.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nCorey Collins, a 24-year-old with 90 professional baseball games under his belt, stepped into the box. Gerrit Cole, the 35-year-old six-time All-Star and 2023 American League Cy Young Award winner, toed the rubber.\n<\/p>\n
Of course, there are going to be butterflies. That\u2019s a Hall of Famer standing 60 feet and 6 inches away.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s one of those feelings when you step in the box, you take a breath, and everything kind of calms down,\u201d Collins said. \u201cAnd it\u2019s like, man, let\u2019s just have fun.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Cole, in the seventh year of a nine-year, $324 million contract with the New York Yankees, hasn\u2019t pitched in an MLB game since October 30, 2024 \u2014 Game 5 of the World Series. He tore his UCL during spring training a few months later and underwent Tommy John surgery in March of 2025, knocking him out for the entire season.\n<\/p>\n
Thirteen months later, Cole is on his way back to the bigs. On April 22, he made a rehab start for the Hudson Valley Renegades. The Brooklyn Cyclones were in the other dugout.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t get this opportunity much, especially in Minor League ball,\u201d Cyclones outfielder John Bay said. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of surreal. You grow up playing MLB The Show using pitchers like Gerrit Cole. So, it\u2019s excitement. There\u2019s no pressure here. It\u2019s an opportunity we\u2019ll never forget, and hey, just get in the box and compete. Let\u2019s go.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Brooklyn\u2019s Corey Collins hit a home run off of rehabbing Yankees ace Gerrit Cole on April 22 against Hudson Valley. Photo courtesy of the Brooklyn Cyclones.<\/p>\n
Cole started his day by setting down the top three of Brooklyn\u2019s lineup in order in the first. Collins, the cleanup hitter, led off the second with a pop-fly double that was, to be generous, aided by some miscommunication between Hudson Valley\u2019s center and left fielders.\n<\/p>\n
Still, it\u2019s a double in the books.\n<\/p>\n
Cole gave up singles to Heriberto Rincon and Antonio Jimenez in the next turn through the order before Collins stepped up to the plate again with one out and no one on in the fourth inning.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cI was just looking to get something up, and he went down with some spin,\u201d Collins said. \u201cThen he went up again, and his eyes lit up, and I was just a little bit early. So I just took the second out of the box, took a deep breath, reset, and he threw it up again, and just took my swing.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Collins smacked it, sending a line drive over the right field wall to put the Cyclones on the board and pick up his second extra-base hit of the day.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cI tried to throw like four changeups in a row, just try to work on that,\u201d Cole said. \u201cAnd yeah, obviously he smoked it, so it was good feedback.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Collins\u2019 teammates retrieved the ball for him, and it\u2019s one he\u2019s going to keep.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not something I always do, but I mean, it is a cool experience, and I do want to enjoy it,\u201d Collins said. \u201cAnd these guys want me to enjoy it as well, so I\u2019m going to.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
The Cyclones got another run off Cole in the fifth inning, stringing together a double from Yohairo Cuevas, a passed ball, and a sacrifice fly from Diego Mosquera on what turned out to be the final pitch thrown by the veteran.\n<\/p>\n
It was not, however, the final pitch thrown by a former MLB All-Star for the Renegades that series. The very next day, Hudson Valley sent three-time Carlos Rod\u00f3n to the mound for his rehab start.\n<\/p>\n
The 33-year-old southpaw had a little more success than Cole, allowing just three baserunners over 4 and \u2153 innings. Mets 2025 first-round pick Mitch Voit singled to lead off the game and was later hit by a pitch, and Kevin Villavicencio drew a walk to knock Rod\u00f3n out of the game in the fifth.\n<\/p>\n
As Bay mentioned, though, they had nothing to lose.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cPlaying with house money,\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n
Brooklyn\u2019s Corey Collins hit a home run off of rehabbing Yankees ace Gerrit Cole on April 22 against Hudson Valley. Photo courtesy of the Brooklyn Cyclones.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Corey Collins, a 24-year-old with 90 professional baseball games under his belt, stepped into the box. Gerrit Cole,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":216388,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-216387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216387","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=216387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216387\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/216388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}