New York Yankees ace Gerrit Cole traveled to Los Angeles to meet with noted orthopedic surgeon Dr. Neal ElAttrache on Monday to determine whether he needs Tommy John surgery on his pitching elbow, manager Aaron Boone disclosed on YES Network.
The meeting is considered the second opinion Cole and the Yankees sought after initial MRI results last week, which reportedly showed that Tommy John surgery was needed.
The 34-year-old right-hander began experiencing discomfort after Thursday’s spring training start against the Minnesota Twins.
“In the game, there was a lot of good stuff happening… but as I got home, I just continued to get more and more sore,” Cole said over the weekend. “Something wasn’t right.”
Yankees general manager Brian Cashman cast further doubt on the 2023 AL Cy Young Award winner’s upcoming season by admitting that he was “expecting the worst.”
ElAttrache is considered the top Tommy John specialist in the country and was the same doctor that Cole visited last spring when he was dealing with nerve inflammation in his elbow. Following that meeting, surgery was taken off the table, and the ace was advised to rest his arm instead.
He did not make his season debut until June 19, but problems lingered throughout the 2024 campaign. As SNY’s Andy Martino noted, Cole threw his sider just 7% of the time last season, which was the lowest rate of his career. He was “gassed” after six innings and 88 pitches in Game 1 of the World Series, which the Yankees eventually lost in heart-breaking fashion on a walk-off grand slam by Freddie Freeman.
Now, it appears as though the surgery, which will end his 2025 campaign before it even begins, is unavoidable until proven otherwise.
