TAMPA, Fla. —The New York Yankees are barely two weeks into Grapefruit League play, and the health report card is already filling up fast. Giancarlo Stanton has a date circled for his first spring game. Cody Bellinger’s back acted up again. And Gerrit Cole keeps flashing the kind of arm strength that has the entire organization buzzing about what the second half of 2026 could look like.
All three storylines carry weight for a Yankees club that won 94 games in 2025 but was bounced by the Toronto Blue Jays in the American League Division Series. With Opening Day in San Francisco set for March 25, every day in Tampa matters.
Stanton targets Tuesday for spring debut
Stanton, the Yankees’ designated hitter and active career home run leader with 477, is tentatively slated to play his first Grapefruit League game on Tuesday against Panama’s World Baseball Classic squad. The 36-year-old slugger has been limited to batting cage work and live batting practice sessions while managing tennis elbow in both arms.
How bad is the pain? Stanton pulled back the curtain in a conversation with NJ.com this week.
“I can’t open up a bottle, can’t open up a bag of chips … a bag of anything,” Stanton said.
That blunt admission described an almost two-year fight with the condition. Yet Stanton has no plans to go under the knife. Instead, he intends to grind through the discomfort the same way he did last season, when he sat out the Yankees’ first 70 games before returning and hitting .273 with 24 home runs and 66 RBIs in 77 games and 249 at-bats. His .594 slugging percentage in that stretch showed he remains one of the most dangerous bats in the American League.
Manager Aaron Boone offered a simple assessment after Thursday’s 7-3 win over the Braves.
“No change. He’s been doing well. He’s ready to roll,” Boone said.
The Yankees plan to start Stanton roughly seven out of every 10 games, which would put him in the range of 110 to 120 starts over a full season. Stanton told NJ.com repeatedly that playing a complete season is his goal. He has not done that since 2018, his first year in pinstripes.
Yankees hitting coach James Rowson spent the week singing his praises.
“Without a doubt, I feel incredibly blessed to have been around Stanton,” Rowson said. “I’ve been around a lot of players in the big leagues, and this dude stands out alone in terms of character and being human. He makes no excuses, but he pushes himself.”
Rowson, who joined the Yankees coaching staff in 2024, added that Stanton commands enormous respect inside the clubhouse.
“He’s as well respected as anybody I’ve seen,” Rowson said. “When he speaks, people listen because he’s got that in him.”
Bellinger sidelined again by familiar back trouble
While the Stanton news was largely encouraging, the Yankees also had to address the absence of their biggest offseason investment. Cody Bellinger missed Saturday’s 5-1 victory over the Blue Jays after his back flared up on Friday. He had also sat out Friday’s road trip to the Twins camp.
Bellinger signed a five-year, $162.5 million contract with the Yankees in late January. The former NL MVP’s back issues are not new. He dealt with similar discomfort early in the 2025 season in Pittsburgh, calling it “just a little unaligned” and predicting it would be “a few days thing.”
Boone downplayed the setback after Saturday’s game.
“We don’t think it’s anything. The trainers aren’t too concerned about it,” Boone said. “This is something that crops up on him every now and then, usually sometime in the spring or earlier in the year.”
The 30-year-old is expected to miss Sunday’s game and Monday’s off day before potentially returning to the lineup on Tuesday. That would put Bellinger and Stanton on the same target date for getting back into Grapefruit League action.
Nine games into spring, the Yankees hold a 7-2 record. Austin Wells drove in key runs during Saturday’s win before departing for the World Baseball Classic with Team Dominican Republic. Aaron Judge and Jazz Chisholm Jr. are also heading out for WBC duty over the coming weeks.
Cole’s arm strength generates growing excitement in camp
Perhaps the most intriguing development in Tampa has nothing to do with lineup availability and everything to do with a right arm that has not appeared in a big-league game since Game 5 of the 2024 World Series.
Gerrit Cole threw his first live batting practice earlier this month, facing Trent Grisham, Aaron Judge and Jasson Dominguez. He threw about 20 pitches while showcasing a new over-the-head windup. His fastball sat at 95 to 96 mph and reportedly touched 97 during the session.
“Everything felt good. I had a good bit of fun,” Cole said. “It was the first day where I was unregulated. The mindset was performance.”
The 2023 AL Cy Young Award winner told MLB Network this week that his rehab from Tommy John surgery, performed in March 2025, is right on track.
“I would say it’s gone very well,” Cole said. “We’ve hit every marker that we’ve tried to hit. We’re in the parameters of what we’re looking for.”
Cole acknowledged that hitting 97 mph caught even him off guard.
“I hadn’t gotten anywhere close to that in my bullpens,” he said. “When the big dogs are in the box, you want to do everything you can to prevent the ball from coming back at your face. So, I guess the adrenaline just raised it up a little bit.”
The Yankees expect the six-time All-Star to return to Major League action in late May or June. There is talk he could pitch in Grapefruit League games before camp breaks, though the organization has made clear it will not rush the process.
“The reality is he didn’t pitch last year on top of having that surgery,” Boone said. “We want to make sure we give him the proper time to make sure he is good and ready to come back, built up in a smart way. We won’t rush that with him, even if it continues to go incredibly well.”
If Stanton can stay on the field, Bellinger’s back cooperates and Cole returns throwing mid-to-upper 90s, this roster can match up with anyone in the American League.
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