Gerrit Cole moving toward throwing off mound in Yankees rehab process

Gerrit Cole completed 50 throws from 120 feet on Tuesday and may progress to throwing off the mound “sometime next week,” according to Yankees manager Aaron Boone.

“You’re out to 120, so it’s moving,” Cole said. “Moving along.”

While 120 feet is typically the farthest distance a rehabbing pitcher will throw before moving to a mound, Boone mentioned that this doesn’t necessarily mean it’s Cole’s last step before bullpen sessions.

“I just think he’s pretty far along in that,” Boone said. “Pretty aggressive in where he’s been throwing — I don’t necessarily think it means he’s getting on the mound immediately. It may be sometime next week. But I know at least so far in the process and how he’s done and how it’s going is encouraging.”

Absent since early March due to nerve inflammation and edema in his right elbow, Cole has emphasized focusing on his rehab day by day without getting ahead of himself. He threw on Monday and Tuesday, is set to rest on Wednesday, and will resume throwing on Thursday if he continues to feel good.

“It’s kind of a similar ramp-up to what an offseason would be like,” Cole, who is on the injured list for the first time in his career, explained. “That’s kind of what we’re working off of. Just trying to nail it. Not go too fast, not go too slow either. But that’s kind of the structure we’re working off of.”

When asked where he would be on the calendar if this were the offseason, Cole was uncertain.

“It’s a good question,” he said. “Still trying to kind of figure that out, because it’s not like the downtime [a 3-4 week shutdown during which Cole kept his arm active] was downtime. Trying to get through this week and then maybe have a better idea of where would be comparable.”

The expectation was that Cole would require the full six-week equivalent of spring training before being ready to rejoin the Yankees. However, most pitchers arrive at camp having already thrown multiple bullpen sessions, so it’s unclear when that six-week timeline would start for Cole. He is not eligible to come off the 60-day IL until May 27 at the earliest, but he will likely need more time than that.

Infield prospect Jorbit Vivas was activated off the injured list at Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre on Tuesday and played his first game since sustaining a left orbital fracture on the final day of spring training.