Gerrit Cole, Carlos Rodón updates are great, but Yankees very much need them now

The New York Yankees can't hold on for much longer without Gerrit Cole and Carlos Rodón in the rotation. It's not that New York's current rotation is a complete mess. It's that New York's bullpen is.

And until the Yankees see what the rotation looks like at full strength, they're handicapped from making substantial changes to the drowning 'pen. They're stuck in no man's land until Cole and Rodón return.

So, when's that expected to happen? Cole's best-case scenario timeline still looks like early June, but the good news is he appears on track to manifest the quickest version of that timeline. Cole made his first rehab start in Double-A Somerset on Friday night, and his length (4 1/3 innings) was encouraging.

As for Rodón, Yankees manager Aaron Boone said on Saturday that he still expects Rodón to return before Cole. Rodón was slated for a 60-pitch live batting practice session on Saturday, per MLB.com's Bryan Hoch. A rehab start is expected to follow.

Yankees' pitching staff is headed for imminent destruction without Gerrit Cole and Carlos Rodón

Mid-May/early June debuts for Rodón and Cole feel far away for a Yankees staff that's taken the club on many a perilous adventure already through 20 games. Rodón and Cole's temporary replacements in the rotation — Ryan Weathers and Luis Gil — have had their struggles on full display. Weathers has had some unlucky run support, and while that doesn't excuse some of his alarming innings, his 36 strikeouts in 28 1/3 innings, in addition to some length (20 1/3 innings over his last three starts), have provided some renewed hope. That said, his five starts so far have been a complete mixed bag, even if everyone is excited after his dominant start vs the Royals on Sunday.

Gil doesn't look like he can help the Yankees win games in any capacity in 2026, and it'll be fascinating to see how Cashman and New York's leadership manage him from here on out.

Moving Gil to the 'pen or sending him back down to Scranton/Wilkes-Barre are the obvious plays once Rodón/Cole re-enter, and the former strategy might win out only because of how bad the bullpen already is. When the garbage can is overflowing with Twix wrappers, pizza crusts, and beer bottles having already crashed to the floor, what damage can a half-eaten Pop-Tart plopped on top really do?

How can Yankees get by in meantime without Gerrit Cole and Carlos Rodón?

Tim Hill and Brent Headrick have been good and, to a lesser extent, so have David Bednar and Fernando Cruz. No other Yankee reliever has been consistently competent, and New York's handling of Jake Bird's demotion — which became a revolving door of mediocre-to-bad replacement arms — only reinforced that the Yankees don't really have a plan in place to address the team's greatest flaw.

At the very least, Yankees fans have been able to watch Max Fried look like the ace that he is in four of his five starts, along with Cam Schlittler putting up the best numbers in baseball (we'll see how that shakes out) and Will Warren showing he belongs in the rotation moving forward.

Cole and Rodón should, in theory, provide clarity for the Yankees upon their return, leading to some much-needed bullpen architecture that should have happened over the winter but never did. In the meantime, the Yankees need to stay afloat for six weeks (at least) to maintain cushion heading into the summer.

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