NEW YORK — Gerrit Cole has spent his career letting his fastball do the talking. On Tuesday night, after his sharpest outing in weeks, the Yankees ace reached for a paintbrush instead.
Cole turned in six strong innings in the Yankees’ lopsided home win over the White Sox, then offered one of the more memorable answers of his season when asked about his recovery. He compared his comeback to the work of a beloved television painter.
The metaphor came after a performance that quieted some of the questions building around his return.
A steadying start on the mound
The Yankees needed a clean outing from their veteran, and Cole delivered. He held the White Sox to two runs on three hits over six innings, striking out six and walking two.
It was his second win of the season and a clear step forward for the Yankees. Cole had stumbled in his previous two starts against the Cleveland Guardians, so the bounce-back came at a useful time.
He also showed signs of building stamina. Cole threw a season-high 90 pitches, a notable marker as he stretches out following Tommy John surgery. He carried a 2.57 ERA into the night.
The lone blemish
Cole was not flawless, but the only real damage was minor. He gave up a two-out solo home run to former Yankee Andrew Benintendi in the first inning.
From there, he locked in for the Yankees. Cole retired 13 hitters in a row after the Benintendi blast, navigating the Chicago lineup with ease until a sixth-inning single broke up his rhythm.
The composure stood out for a pitcher still rounding into form. Cole has now made five starts since returning from the injured list in May.
Cole paints a picture
The highlight off the field came in the clubhouse. Cole was asked whether he measures his current self against his pre-surgery form, and his response took an artistic turn.
Rather than dwell on comparisons, the right-hander framed his season as a work in progress, one still taking shape. He invoked the late painter Bob Ross to make the point.
“I feel like it’s kind of a blank canvas,” Cole said. “I’m just laying down some base layer paint, and we’ll see what kind of Bob Ross concoction comes at the end of the year. A little bit of liquid white.”
The quote captured Cole’s patient mindset. At 35 and a year removed from major elbow surgery, he appears focused on the long view rather than instant results.
The numbers worth watching
Beneath the strong line sits a trend the Yankees will track. Cole’s swing-and-miss numbers have been unusually low to open the year.
Through his first four starts, Cole posted a 17.9 percent whiff rate. The breakdown was uneven: 16 percent against the Rays, a healthy 35 percent against the Royals, then just 7.5 percent and 11 percent in two outings against the Guardians.
By his own lofty standards, three of those starts rank among the most extreme of his career. Since 2015, across 279 starts of at least 50 pitches, his first, third, and fourth outings of 2026 rank tied for 270th, 275th, and 277th in total whiffs.
Three of the four came against Cleveland and Kansas City, two of the toughest lineups to miss bats against. Still, generating swings and misses has rarely been a problem for Cole, and he is the type of arm the Yankees would lean on in October against contact-heavy clubs.
Signs the stuff is still there
There are reasons for the Yankees to expect the whiffs to return. The underlying data suggests his arsenal remains largely intact.
His stuff grades as above average by Fangraphs, though slightly down, while TJStats pegs it as nearly identical to last season. Most encouraging for the Yankees, Cole touched 100 mph in his latest outing, a velocity marker that signals his power is coming back.
Another quirk worth monitoring is his lack of chase. In three of his early starts, Cole drew only one or two whiffs on pitches outside the strike zone, an oddity for a pitcher who has long made hitters expand.
The trend is something to keep an eye on rather than a cause for alarm, especially with the velocity climbing and the surgery still in the rearview mirror.
A patient rebuild for the ace
For now, the Yankees will take the results and the perspective. Cole understands how hard it is to snap back to peak form after a lengthy layoff, and he is giving himself room to grow into it.
The painting metaphor fit the moment. Like an unfinished canvas, his season is still being built layer by layer, with the best work potentially saved for later in the year.
Cole will carry that approach into his sixth start of 2026. If the velocity keeps ticking up and the swings and misses follow, the Yankees may yet see the finished masterpiece their ace is hinting at.
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