KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Gerrit Cole’s first start of the season — his first start on a big league mound in 17 months — came with plenty of buzz Friday.
Now comes the hard part: trying to do it all over again five days later Wednesday night against the Royals.
After tossing six shutout innings against the Rays in his first game back from Tommy John surgery, Cole will have a chance to match that in an encore as he settles back into the routine of the season.
“Just build on that,” manager Aaron Boone said Tuesday before the Yankees’ 15-1 destruction of the Royals at Kauffman Stadium. “I thought it was a great first go after 17 months of not being on a big league mound really. What was really impressive to me was obviously he pitched well, six shutout innings.
“But I thought he managed the game really well. Handled all the different game-like situations against a team like the Rays where the running game and their speed and athleticism is a factor. He controlled all those in-game situations with a pitch clock. Maybe you would have thought maybe there’d be some rust there, I thought he handled those things so, so well.”
“Just looking for him to go back out there and hopefully continuing to get settled and back into the flow and the routine and the rhythm of pitching every fifth and sixth day.”
An efficient Cole threw 72 pitches against the Rays and will likely have somewhere around 80 at his disposal Wednesday as he continues his buildup.
He had thrown 84 pitches in his final rehab start, but big league pitches thrown with the highest level of adrenaline are weighed differently.
Cole will be starting on four days’ rest after only doing so once during his rehab assignment.
On a night when Cam Schlittler said he “did not think it was my day,” he still gave up just one run (a solo shot by Bobby Witt Jr.) across six innings while striking out six.
“Not the best, stuff wasn’t as sharp, but was able to put the team in position to win,” he said. “That’s all you can ask for.”
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Giancarlo Stanton worked out at Yankee Stadium on Tuesday, then went for another round of imaging — the results of which were not immediately available — hoping to find enough healing in his right calf to be cleared to start his running progression.
