ANAHEIM, Calif. — Gerrit Cole completed another successful step in his rehab process on Thursday.
Up next: Rehab assignment?
Aaron Boone was not ready to officially announce Cole’s next step just yet, but after the reigning AL Cy Young winner threw 43 pitches in a simulated game at the club’s player development complex, the manager said there’s a “good chance” his next outing could be a rehab game — it would likely be on Tuesday — if he recovers well in the coming days.
“That’s definitely a possibility,” Boone said before the series finale at Angel Stadium. “We’ll see how he recovers now. I talked to Gerrit, sounds like everything went well today. He was pretty pleased with his outing and just how he felt. So assuming everything goes well, good chance at a rehab next.”
Once Cole begins a rehab assignment, it will start a 30-day clock, putting him in line for a potential return by the end of June.
The Yankees may use most of those 30 days to properly build up Cole’s workload.
They are not expected to bring him back any earlier because of Clarke Schmidt’s lat strain, which will shut him down for four to six weeks and potentially keep him out until at least August.
Boone would like the league to take another look at the rule that cost the Yankees on Wednesday night, when Juan Soto was called for interference getting back to second base on an infield fly rule.
It was almost the same exact play that happened last week in a White Sox-Orioles game, after which White Sox manager Pedro Grifol predicted it would happen again with fielding teams trying to get an extra out in the scenario by making contact with the runner on an infield fly.
“It’s probably something that hopefully, maybe, can get revisited a little bit,” Boone said. “Juan’s in jeopardy of getting doubled off if he doesn’t get there. If you don’t nail the get-back in the right exact way — he just got stuck with [Angels shortstop Zach] Neto probably misjudging it a little bit and backing into him. So it’s like, what are you to do as a runner?”
Boone talked to the league on Thursday and while he said the umpires called the play correctly by the letter of the law, he doesn’t want it to come back into play in a big game later in the year.
DJ LeMahieu started at first base Thursday for the first time this season, with Anthony Rizzo getting the day off against left-hander Patrick Sandoval.
