{"id":480596,"date":"2026-02-20T21:16:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T21:16:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/480596\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T21:16:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T21:16:07","slug":"yankees-cole-throws-96-9-mph-in-first-session-vs-hitters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/480596\/","title":{"rendered":"Yankees&#8217; Cole throws 96.9 mph in first session vs. hitters"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Feb 20, 2026, 03:18 PM ET<\/p>\n<p>TAMPA, Fla. &#8212; <a data-player-guid=\"af61347b-c222-7604-92c0-be4da7756430\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/mlb\/player\/_\/id\/32081\/gerrit-cole\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Gerrit Cole<\/a> reached 96.9 mph in his first session against hitters since the <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"2b9cedf3-ce60-0bcf-fafe-8cd055255685\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/mlb\/team\/_\/name\/nyy\/new-york-yankees\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">New York Yankees<\/a> ace had Tommy John elbow surgery last March.<\/p>\n<p>The right-hander threw about 20 pitches of batting practice Friday, facing <a data-player-guid=\"c5c5bb27-7dbf-baac-e243-797a845d2d8f\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/mlb\/player\/_\/id\/34995\/trent-grisham\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Trent Grisham<\/a>, <a data-player-guid=\"e3e39e69-2861-f5b5-49be-b0880534c802\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/mlb\/player\/_\/id\/33192\/aaron-judge\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Aaron Judge<\/a> and <a data-player-guid=\"0e565341-2749-31fe-b0dd-f03cf1ea67a4\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/mlb\/player\/_\/id\/42401\/jasson-dominguez\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jasson Dominguez<\/a> at the Yankees&#8217; spring training facility. He threw his first bullpen session a week earlier.<\/p>\n<p>New York expects Cole to be ready at some point from May to September, which would fit the recovery range of 14 to 18 months that the 2023 AL Cy Young Award winner has said was the target all along.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It sounds like it was really good,&#8221; manager Aaron Boone said before the Yankees&#8217; exhibition opener against the <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"9ca473b8-e73e-a33d-8ea0-b4d160be4be7\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/mlb\/team\/_\/name\/bal\/baltimore-orioles\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Baltimore Orioles<\/a> in Sarasota.<\/p>\n<p>Cole, 35, has altered his windup, putting his hands over his head. Before he was hurt, he stopped at his chest.<\/p>\n<p>Cole&#8217;s last official outing was in Game 5 of the 2024 World Series that Oct. 30. He pitched in two spring training games in 2025, the last on March 6. Surgery was five days later.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Feb 20, 2026, 03:18 PM ET TAMPA, Fla. &#8212; Gerrit Cole reached 96.9 mph in his first session&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":480597,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[363,99],"class_list":["post-480596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=480596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480596\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/480597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=480596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=480596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=480596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}