New York Yankees starting pitcher Gerrit Cole will make his long-awaited season debut on Friday against the Tampa Bay Rays, manager Aaron Boone announced Tuesday.

The Yankees sent Elmer Rodríguez to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre on Monday. With an opening in the rotation, the team will activate the 2023 AL Cy Young Award winner on Friday, rather than scheduling him for a final rehab start.

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Cole’s performance in his latest rehab start is certainly a factor in that thinking. He hit 99.6 mph on the radar gun and averaged 97 mph with his fastball in a Triple-A appearance Saturday. The right-hander pitched 5 1/3 innings and threw 86 pitches, 56 for strikes.

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“We just feel like he has done everything he needs to be ready to compete now at this level,” Boone told reporters Tuesday, per the New York Post’s Greg Joyce.

In six rehab starts, Cole has recorded 28 strikeouts and three walks in 29 innings while compiling a 5.28 ERA. His rehab assignment began on April 17.

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“It’s just a really long rehab,” Cole told The Associated Press before Saturday’s start. “If you include the offseason from the year prior, it’s been about 17 months since I last performed at the big leagues, so no matter how you slice it, that’s a long time.”

Cole, 35, has been working his way back from Tommy John surgery that he underwent last spring. He missed the entire 2025 MLB season. During spring training this year, his fastball topped out at 98 mph in two appearances.

When Cole takes the bump Friday in Yankee Stadium, it will be the first time he has pitched for the Yankees since Game 5 of the 2024 World Series. In that start, he allowed five unearned runs (due to errors by Aaron Judge and Anthony Volpe) on four hits with six strikeouts and four walks. The Los Angeles Dodgers clinched the World Series title in the game.

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The Yankees (29-19) entered Tuesday’s matchup with the Toronto Blue Jays three games behind the Rays (31-15) for the AL East lead. They have lost eight of their past 12 games while Tampa Bay has gone 13-3 in May.