Yankees questionable training staff let off the hook on Gerrit Cole injury scare

The best ability is availability. This statement holds true no matter the sport, era, team or player.

For the New York Yankees, this can be seen firsthand. They have missed multiple future Hall of Famers throughout the 2024 season with injuries.

Anthony Rizzo is finally back; Giancarlo Stanton has missed significant time and so has Gerrit Cole. But as the season draws closer to the postseason, the Yankees are finally getting healthy. And if they want to win the AL East, the AL pennant and the World Series, they're going to need to do whatever they have to in order to stay healthy.

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Gerrit Cole pulls himself from start with calf cramps

The Bronx Bombers got another big injury scare recently, when their ace Gerrit Cole left the game after six innings of one run baseball at just 82 pitches. Many would expect Cole to enter for another inning, maybe even two depending on how close the game was.

But Cole exited.

It was later revealed that he was experiencing calf cramps, which is why he would come out of the game. It wasn't a manager's decision or the decision of the training staff. Instead, it was Cole's call to come out of the game.

"I just didn’t think it was the right situation to keep trying to manipulate it out there,” Cole said.

There's a time and a place to push through something like that. But the Yankees held a commanding 7-1 lead over the Rangers, so Cole was right to say that this wasn't really the right situation to keep trying to manipulate it.

The worst-case scenario for the Yankees is that Cole would have tried to push himself for an extra inning in a game that the Yankees held a commanding lead in. Pushing a thing like a calf strain could have turned into something much worse, which, in turn, could have caused Cole to miss even more time.

The Yankees are going to need to be healthy in order to secure the AL East crown and a first round bye in the postseason.

At the end of the day, the best ability is availability.