Yankees ace Gerrit Cole gives up a home run in first rehab start

[p]Two of the three hits that [a href="https://www.flashscore.ca/player/cole-gerrit/ry3vUq10/"]Cole[/a], 35, surrendered included an RBI double and a two-run home run, while also posting one walk with three strikeouts in his start.[/p][p]Despite the runs, he threw 36 of his 44 pitches for strikes. [/p][embed guid="248036f6-ee5b-49ff-89b8-2fd17eb24923" url="https://x.com/milb_central/status/2045285848476700946?s=20" social-type="twitter" /][p]The 2023 Cy Young winner is recovering from Tommy John surgery after missing all of 2025. He had a couple of one-inning outings during Spring Training and simulated innings against batters from the [a href="https://www.flashscore.ca/team/new-york-yankees/SrC4LDIT/"]Yankees[/a]' High-A team, the Hudson Valley Renegades, on Sunday.[/p][p]Rehab assignments are 30 days for pitchers, with a 10-day extension, compared to batters recovering from injuries, who are given 20 days for their rehab stint. [/p][p]So the Yankees expect Cole to be ready around the start of June as they want to properly build up his return to the starting rotation. [/p][p]Cole joined the Yankees in 2020 and has continued to be one of the best pitchers in baseball. In 2022, Cole led all pitchers with 33 starts and 257 strikeouts. [/p][p]Come the following year, he won his second ERA title after posting the American League with a 2.63 and 209 innings pitched, along with a league-leading two complete game shutouts, 7.4 WAR (wins above replacement), and winning percentage after posting a 15-4 record.[/p][embed guid="de6dd8d1-5f5b-466f-ae83-e471cb7504dc" url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGZ4jofLCjQ&pp=ygULR2Vycml0IENvbGU%3D" social-type="youtube" /][p]New York (11-9) currently boasts the eighth-best starting rotation ERA (3.40), which has the fifth-most strikeouts (108) heading into April 17th's slate of games. [/p]