NEW YORK -- When Gerrit Cole walks to the Yankee Stadium mound on Wednesday evening, snarling and throwing upper-90s heat, expect to see Clarke Schmidt looking on with a few bemused shakes of his head.
Schmidt knows better than most what the road back from Tommy John surgery is supposed to look like. He’s still traveling it himself, grinding through daily work with the hopes of rejoining the Yankees' rotation sometime in the second half.
So when Cole commands both sides of the plate and seemingly turns the clock back to his Cy Young Award-winning form, Schmidt knows he’s witnessing something rare.
“It’s obviously incredible,” Schmidt said. “It’s just Gerrit Cole, so he seems to roll out of bed and do that. Seeing the behind the scenes of the ins and outs, the dark days and how it gets, to be able to see where he’s at right now is special.”
Wednesday will mark Cole’s third start since rejoining the Yankees' rotation, and through 12 2/3 innings, he has yet to permit a run.
Cole returned with six scoreless frames on May 22 against the Rays, then picked up a win in his most recent outing on May 27 against the Royals in Kansas City, helping to guide the Bombers to a 7-0 victory in a 10-strikeout performance.
“Maybe the first game was the appetizer,” manager Aaron Boone said that night. “That was the main course right there.”
If that’s the case, then sign the Yankees up for a second or third helping. Those lines are especially encouraging, considering Cole endured a 569-day absence, his most recent Major League outing before those two coming in Game 5 of the 2024 World Series.
An unapologetic perfectionist, Cole said there are still boxes he must check.
“I think it’s coming along,” Cole said in Kansas City. “There’s still stuff to work on in general. We moved the ball around the strike zone well tonight. Maybe we didn’t get through the fastballs as well as we could have. But with what we had tonight, I thought we used it well.”
Having trained alongside Cole all spring at the Yankees’ complex in Tampa, Fla., Schmidt isn’t surprised that the Bombers' ace is finding reasons to quibble with his results. He’s been doing that all along, from catch play to bullpens to live batting practice.
“How we’ve bonded over this has been a lot of fun,” Schmidt said. “To be able to have this unique experience where you can bounce off each other -- it’s kind of misery loves company. So it’s good to have him with me.”
And from where he’ll be sitting on Wednesday, Schmidt can plainly understand this -- the rehab work is supposed to be hard. The comeback should look hard, too.
In Cole’s case, that hasn’t yet seemed to be true.
“If you look across the league at guys who have had it, this isn’t usual,” Schmidt said. “It’s a testament to the work he’s put in, the preparation he’s put in. It’s motivating for me to see what he’s done behind the scenes and how detailed he’s been with the throwing programs.
“It’s not a one-way street; there’s a lot of dialogue, like, ‘Why are we doing this today?’ It’s just continuing to understand that it’s your career and you’ve got to take it into your hands.”