Yankees’ Cole won’t throw for 3 to 4 weeks due to elbow
TAMPA, FLA. » Yankees ace Gerrit Cole won’t throw for three to four weeks because of nerve irritation and edema in his throwing elbow.
“I think we’ve determined that we just got a little too hot a little too quick,” Cole said before Saturday’s game against Toronto. “I just got to a certain point where we just didn’t hit baseline and recovery. That’s important at this time of the year.”
Yankees general manager Brian Cashman said if the team needed a 40-man roster spot that Cole would be placed on the 60-day injured list, which means the earliest the AL Cy Young award winner could be back is late May. The right-hander will need a spring training-like period after he resumes throwing before rejoining the team.
“I feel really comfortable based on all the feedback and the experts that were involved in deciding to go (with) rest,” Cashman said. “Best-case scenario we wouldn’t be dealing with anything, right? But secondbest case, right?”
“It’s not a common experience for me,” Cole said. “I haven’t really dealt with anything like this before. So anytime you’re going through something for the first time, there’s a little bit of uncertainty, but I had a lot of faith. I felt good leaving the doctor, yeah.”
Cole is entering the fifth season of a $324 million, nine-year contract that pays $36 million annually. He has the right to opt out after the season and become a free agent, but if he opts out the Yankees can void the opt-out by adding a guaranteed $36 million salary for 2029.
Outielder Aaron Judge did defensive drills on Saturday, including making a leaping catch at the wall, and took part in base-running drills during on-field work.
The 2022 AL MVP hasn’t played in a spring training game since last Sunday and had an MRI of his abdomen the following day.
“The doctors tell me and they’re like, he’s good,” Cashman said.
Ohtani: Seoul games will be ‘great memories’
SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA » Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani says the upcoming season opener against the San Diego Padres in Seoul will provide “great memories” for him and his wife, but he’ll attempt to focus on baseball.
Ohtani spoke to journalists with Dodgers teammates at a packed press conference on Saturday, a day after he arrived here with his wife Mamiko Tanaka.
Ohtani said it was the first time for his wife “to come with me to a game like this.”
“So I think it’s going to be really great memories for both of us. But like I said earlier, I have one job to focus on. It’s baseball,” Otani said via an interpreter.
Kole Calhoun retires
Kole Calhoun, a Gold Glove-winning outfielder during a 12-year career with the Angels, Diamondbacks, Rangers and Guardians, says he is retiring.
Calhoun, 36, was a lifetime .242 hitter with 179 homers and 582 RBIs. He won a Gold Glove for the Angels in 2015, when he also hit a career-high 26 homers. He was third in the NL with 16 homers in the pandemicshortened 2020 season.