Max Fried battling a bone bruise in his left elbow<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\nBut as the Yankees now head into the heart of the playoffs in the first week of October, their rotation is lined up as well as they could have planned.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe mix of all of us looks good,\u201d Cole said. \u201cWe have four or five unique arms, with completely different stuff and it\u2019s elite.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Yankees didn\u2019t announce their rotation order for the ALDS on Wednesday, but Cole and Rod\u00f3n are in line to pitch Game 1, with Cam Schlittler potentially in Game 2 so he would be available for a Game 5 start.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHowever they draw it up, I think we\u2019re in a good spot,\u2019\u2019 Cole said. \u201cCarlos and I will just take the ball and we all have our own unique ways of doing it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
He believes the same is true of the rest of the team, which showed off some flexibility in the wild-card series, with multiple players playing first base, second, third, center field and right.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGo beyond the box score with the Bombers\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for Inside the Yankees by Greg Joyce, exclusively on Sports+.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\tThank you\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
For the two games against Boston, they hardly even seemed to miss Aaron Judge, who remains out with a strained calf.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The 2023 Yankees were unable to overcome his absence and missed the playoffs when Judge suffered a torn ligament in his toe.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s taken all of us,\u2019\u2019 Cole said. \u201cWe found a way to thrive with a hand behind our back \u2026 [and] we have a lot of different ways to beat you.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Cole hopes he\u2019s one of them in the next round, having last pitched a postseason game in the ugly Game 5 loss to the Dodgers two years ago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gerrit Cole hasn\u2019t pitched yet in this postseason, but that is certain to change against the Rays in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":819451,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2377],"tags":[5,2281,4,2305,62,297,185,2550,68,2551,2549],"class_list":["post-819450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa-bay-rays","tag-baseball","tag-gerrit-cole","tag-mlb","tag-mlb-playoffs","tag-new-york-yankees","tag-rays","tag-sports","tag-tampa-bay","tag-tampa-bay-rays","tag-tampabay","tag-tampabayrays"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/117369440136979264","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/819450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=819450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/819450\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/819451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=819450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=819450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=819450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"New](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/new-york-yankees-starting-pitcher-142246616.jpg\")
New York Yankees starting pitcher Gerrit Cole (45) follows through on a pitch against the Tampa Bay Rays during the first inning at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, New York, Wednesday, September 23, 2026. IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect<\/p>\n