By Lenn Robbins
For one night, call him the One and Done Kid.
Gerrit Cole, the Yankees $324 million professor of pitching, has a plan for everything. Or he’s working on it.
According to numerous reports out of Tampa, when Cole isn’t plying his trade, he’s talking about it, or studying it, or thinking it. Monday night was Cole’s turn to pitch in pinstripes for the first time.
He executed his plan almost perfectly: One inning pitched. No questions left.
Cole threw 20 pitches, 14 of them fastballs. He hit 98. He threw 12 strikes.
“Yeah, that’s kind of why I try to keep it to one inning,” Cole told reporters when asked if his fastball is usually strong early in spring training.
“Some guys go two innings early. I like to take it one at a time for the first two or three until you build up that tolerance to up and down. Then you can extend the pitch count in certain situations here and there. For the first time go pitch for the one inning and do your best with whatever you got that day.’’
Cole struck out two and walked one.
Go ahead Yankees fans. Even with the injuries to James Paxton and Luis Severino, start dreaming.