NEW YORK — The New York Yankees have been one of the better stories in the American League through the first month of the 2026 season. They have done it at 15-9 without two of the most important arms on the roster.
That is about to change.
The Yankees announced this week that both Gerrit Cole and Carlos Rodon are scheduled to pitch for their High-A affiliate, the Hudson Valley Renegades, in back-to-back appearances on Thursday and Friday. For Cole, it will be his second rehab start. For Rodon, it will be his first game action of the entire 2026 season.
Two starters who, when healthy, rank among the best in the league are now moving through the final steps of their return. The rotation that has carried the Yankees this spring is about to get significantly deeper.
Gerrit Cole: The long road back from Tommy John surgery
Cole’s return has been the most closely watched storyline in the Yankees organization since the offseason began. The 35-year-old right-hander was placed on the 15-day injured list on March 25 while continuing his recovery from Tommy John surgery, which he underwent in early 2025.
He missed the entire 2025 regular season and postseason. His last MLB appearance came in 2024, when he went 8-5 with a 3.41 ERA and 99 strikeouts over 17 starts and 95 innings pitched. That was a shortened return from an earlier elbow issue. His last full, dominant season came in 2023, when he won the AL Cy Young Award with a 15-4 record, a 2.63 ERA, and 222 strikeouts across 33 starts.
Cole began his current rehab assignment last Friday with Double-A Somerset, where he threw 4.1 innings against Reading. The Yankees described the outing as encouraging. Now, on Thursday, Cole is scheduled to take the mound at Heritage Financial Park in Wappingers Falls, N.Y., pitching for the Renegades against the Brooklyn Cyclones. It will be his first High-A rehab start.
The Yankees have been deliberate with his workload at every step. The expectation, based on available reporting, is that Rodon will return to the major league rotation before Cole, despite Cole having started his rehab first. The patience reflects the gravity of Tommy John surgery recovery and the Yankees’ desire to avoid any further setbacks.
Carlos Rodon: First game action of 2026 arrives Friday
Rodon’s absence has been shorter but no less significant. The 33-year-old left-hander did not have Tommy John surgery, but he experienced right hamstring tightness at the end of March that delayed his season start. He has not thrown a single pitch in a game this year.
That changes Friday. Rodon is scheduled to pitch for the Hudson Valley Renegades on April 25, one day after Cole’s start, in what will mark his first rehab appearance of this assignment. Per reports, the plan calls for him to make approximately three rehab appearances before the Yankees activate him from the injured list.
This will not be Rodon’s first time rehabbing in Hudson Valley. He stopped there during his return from injury in 2023, his first season in pinstripes. In four years with the Yankees, Rodon has gone 37-26 with a 4.00 ERA, 462 strikeouts, and 79 starts across 434.2 innings. Last season, he posted a 3.09 ERA with a 25.7 percent strikeout rate over 33 starts and was a key piece of the rotation that helped the Yankees reach the postseason.
The Yankees are managing his workload carefully. If all goes well with the three scheduled rehab outings and he remains healthy, Rodon could be back in the Yankee Stadium rotation as soon as mid-May.
A rotation that is already working, about to get stronger
The backdrop to all of this is a starting rotation that has outperformed most preseason projections despite the absences. Through 24 games, Yankees starters hold a 2.67 ERA. The team ranks sixth in the majors in overall ERA, fourth in WHIP, and the rotation’s 3.06 FIP is third best in the league.
Max Fried has led the group with a 2.97 ERA and eight scoreless innings in his most recent start against the Red Sox. Cam Schlittler has a 1.95 ERA through five outings and has moved into the early AL Cy Young conversation. Will Warren sits at 2.49 and Ryan Weathers at 3.18.
The reporter Greg Joyce, breaking the news of the Renegades schedule ahead of Tuesday’s series opener in Boston, framed the situation cleanly: Cole on Thursday, Rodon on Friday, with both targeting a major league return in the weeks that follow.
When that day comes, the Yankees will face a genuine decision about how to fit two additional quality starters into a rotation that has not needed them. It is the kind of problem that tends to work itself out. The bigger picture is that a team already winning ball games in April is moving toward having its full complement of starting pitching for the first time.
The Yankees’ rotation was built to be elite. It is about to find out if it can live up to that billing with everyone available.
What do you think? Who should they replace on Yankees rotation once back on roster?
