The Yankees are getting their ace back. Right-hander is going to be reinstated from the injured list on Wednesday, per manager , relayed by Talkin Yanks . The Yanks and their fans got a big scare back in the spring when Cole was shut down with his throwing elbow having difficulty recovering between starts Sammy Sosa Jersey and throwing se sions. That naturally led to concerns that he would require some sort of surgery and mi s the entire season on the heels of winning the American League Cy Young in 2023. Thankfully, those worst-case scenarios have not come to pa s. Cole was recommended for non-surgical rehab and has been slowly working his way through that proce s over the past few months. He was able to begin a rehab a signment at the start of this month, making three starts in the minor leagues over the past few weeks. His most recent outing was in Triple-A on Friday, during which he to sed 70 pitches over 4 1/3 shutout innings with ten strikeouts. Despite not having Cole all year, the Yanks have been dominating. Their rotation has a 2.90 earned run average, the best in the majors. In Coles absence, , , and have all engineered fantastic bounceback seasons after they each were injured and/or struggling in 2023. Cortes had the highest ERA of those four at 3.59. was also a big part of the rotation succe s until recently. He has a 2.52 ERA on the year but has been on the IL for about three weeks with a lat strain. has stepped up to make four good starts in Schmidts absence but is now likely to get optioned or sent to the bullpen with Coles return. Cole is one of the best pitchers in the league and, as mentioned, won the Cy last year. He took the ball 33 times in 2023 and to sed 209 innings with a 2.63 ERA, 27% strikeout rate and 5.8% walk rate. Even if he has a bit of post-injury rust and cant quite get back to that elite peak, he will still strengthen and lengthen a team that has the best record in the league. The Yankees are 50-24 and have the best winning percentage in the majors, though they are in a tough divisional battle. The Orioles are tied with the Phillies for the second-best record in baseball behind the Yanks, meaning theres a small gap of 1.5 games between the top two teams in the American League East. Getting Cole back could also impact how the Yankees a semble their rotation going forward. Gil pitched le s than 30 innings over 2022 and 2023 due to Tommy John surgery and may need to face workload limitations at some point, perhaps when Schmidt is back in the picture. The other long-term factor is Coles contract. He will have four years and $144MM left on his deal at the end of this season when he can decide to trigger an opt-out. If he does so, the club can void that opt-out by triggering a $36MM club option for 2029. Before this injury, the industry expectation was that he would trigger his opt-out and the Yanks would void it by triggering the option, though those decision are now at least somewhat up in the air due to his absence. His performance in the coming months will gradually shed more light on the likely outcome of that scenario. Trey Wingenter Jersey