Doomsday Is Near: Gerrit Cole Needs An MRI On His Pitching Elbow
Newsday LLC. Getty Images.Heading into today, everything regarding Yankees Spring Training had been going well, almost too well. Soto's arrival was a beautiful sight to see, especially with the way his swing has looked. Judge, Stanton, DJ, Gleyber, Rizzo, etc. all were healthy. Volpe leveled out his swing to generate better plate coverage and more contact. Rodon could look better, but he was still off to a better start than 2023. You take all of that and just pray Opening Day arrives tomorrow.
Then this report came out. A fucking knife to the heart.
Pitching elbow discomfort requiring an MRI —a death sentence in baseball. It's a report so bleak and depressing that it's enough to end the season right now. Cole, Judge, and Soto are the three guys who under no circumstances can get seriously injured. You saw how bad shit got on offense with Judge missing most of the summer. Soto's bat speaks for itself. And Cole? I mean if you want any shot of competing for a championship you need him fully locked and loaded.
One of Cole's greatest attributes is durability. He hasn't been on the non-covid IL since 2016, a string of 1279.1 regular season innings in that span. His pitching motion is effortless and flawless. He's so diligent and smart with the way he prepares himself physically for an upcoming season. He's the reliable ace you pay a dump truck of money to who shows up every 5th day giving you top of the line performance. If he goes down, so does the whole ship.
The Yankees were likely going to be in need of another arm at some point this season when you look at the rotation, but replacing Cole on top of that? Forget about it. If he's actually done for the season on March 11th then what's even the point? I'll just go home and stare at my balcony wondering if a quick leap off would be the right course of action.
I don't even want to think about contingency plans with Blake Snell or whoever because no matter who it is, they're not Gerrit Cole. What a gut punch that'll be. Praying Nestor is right and they're just getting ahead of this early, but my god do I feel horrible.
Please just be a dead arm. Please just be a dead arm. Please just be a dead arm.
Sports having the ability to ruin your day, week, month, year in one tweet is truly something else. Why do we do this to ourselves? Now I gotta wait for a notification to pop up on my phone for the next 36 hours that either tells me if the season is over or not. Sick.
