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Gerrit Cole opens up first ‘normal’ spring training with Yankees entering fourth season

The Yankees’ ace is finally getting his first taste of normalcy in pinstripes.

Gerrit Cole is entering his fourth season with the Bombers. However, his first spring start in the Yanks’ 5-3 loss to the Tigers Friday night at George M Steinbrenner Field in Tampa — three shutout innings allowing one hit while striking out four batters throwing 51 pitches topping out at 99 mph according to the stadium radar gun — opened up his first “normal” spring training with the club.

The 32-year-old inked a nine-year, $324 million contract with the Yankees at the 2019 Winter Meetings — four months before MLB and the world shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic pushing the start of the 2020 season back to July 23 beginning a 60-game schedule with no fans in attendance.

In 2021, COVID was still at large leading to talks of a delay and eventually to a revised spring schedule to limit travel with limited capacity in stadiums to open up the regular season. The 2022 spring season also began with a delay due to contentious labor negotiations between MLB and MLBPA leading to a lockout that pushed the spring opener to March 18.

The former No. 1 overall pick has had to make plenty of adjustments during his Yankee career. Outside of scheduling delays due to the pandemic and then labor strife, MLB cracked down on pitchers using foreign substances to get a better grip on the ball mid-way through the 2021 season.

“It’s so hard to grip the ball,” Cole complained in June of 2021. “It’s part of the reason why almost every player on the field, regardless if they’re a pitcher or not, help them control the ball. I don’t have a solution, but again, we are aligned in a lot of areas with the commissioner’s office on this. Please just talk to us, please just work with us.

“We’ve been living in a grey area for so long, I wouldn’t just hate to see players get hurt. I’d hate to see balls come flying at players’ heads.”

Fast forward to 2023, Cole finally has no spring scheduling conflicts and has had ample time to get used to playing by MLB’s new rules of using substances to grip the baseball.

The California native also enters this season in unfamiliar territory with the talent around him in the starting rotation. Cole leads arguably the best starting rotation in MLB with three All-Stars taking the ball behind him in the rotation with Nestor Cortes, Luis Severino and the newly inked Carlos Rodon.

“I first met Carlos a handful of years ago, working out,” Cole told reporters on Feb. 16 at George M Steinbrenner Field. “I was struck by just his raw strength and intensity. And I think everyone’s kind of gotten to see that a little bit more as he continues to take the mound over and over again and progress and get stronger and settle into his career.

“Just talking to him a few times since he’s been signed and since we’ve been down here [Tampa], some of those things I mentioned are still there. And I think that he’s in a position to keep getting better and hopefully for us get a lot better.”

The three pitchers that Cole is set out to lead arguably performed at a higher level than he did during the 2022 regular season. It was an up-and-down year for the power righty who registered a 3.50 ERA in 33 starts last season.

His kryptonite was the long ball that got him a league-leading 33 times, however, the veteran didn’t seem concerned about being prone to the homer earlier in the spring.

“Part of it is my style,” Cole said. “I don’t walk many guys. I throw strikes with all of my pitches. Part of what makes me great is my low walk rate. There’s a pretty good chance that when you face me, I’m going to be in the strike zone. If you get a pitch to hit and you put a really good swing on it, sometimes those balls will go out. It’s not like I’m going to give up zero home runs this year. I’m always going to give up a certain amount of home runs.”

Cole, however, wiped away all of his regular-season hiccups with his strong performance in the postseason. The righty allowed just six runs in 18.1 innings between his three playoff starts in the ALDS against the Guardians and ALCS vs the Astros.

His most memorable postseason moment came in Game 4 against Cleveland when the Yankees were on the brink of elimination throwing a gutsy seven innings allowing just two runs and striking out eight batters and Progressive Field.

Entering Year 4 in pinstripes, there are no excuses — assuming the newly implemented pitch clock doesn’t have an effect on his performance — to point to for the ace as ending the Astros’ jinx and the Bombers’ 13-year World Series title drought is at the top of the to-do list.

RETURN OF THE KING

Michael King made his return to the mound on Friday night. The right-hander tossed two scoreless frames striking out four of the six batters he faced and allowing zero base runners.

The 27-year-old toed the slab for the first time since July 22 of last season when he fractured his elbow which cost him the remainder of his breakout season. The Rochester native registered a 2.29 ERA in 34 appearances last season

King figures to be featured in a high-leverage role again this upcoming season. However, Aaron Boone is still weighing how to use the swiss-army knife type of starter.

“Quite a bit of talk and debate about what’s the best way to use [King]?” Boone said at George M Steinbrenner Field on Feb. 15. “It it that multi-inning role out of the bullpen every few days where you essentially give some high-leverage guys days off. Is he part of the short stint, one-inning guys at the back of the bullpen?

“How we best use him and he how he fits into the bullpen will be something we probably have a lot of talk and debate out.”

CHECKING IN

DJ LeMahieu, Aaron Judge, Gleyber Torres, Giancarlo Stanton, Harrison Bader and Isiah Kiner-Falefa were featured in Friday’s lineup against the Tigers.

Judge was the leader in the clubhouse checking in with two doubles in his three at-bats. Bader is the only other notable player to register a hit as he went 1-2 with a double.

Kiner-Falefa was highlighted for the wrong reasons. The 27-year-old was marked down for an error on a routine ground ball in the top of the second inning reminiscent of what derailed him defensively last season.

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Source: Berkshire mont

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