Gerrit Cole early exit with injury vs. Rangers has Yankees fans begging for calf cramp

UPDATE: According to the Yankees, it's officially a calf cramp for Cole, who'll be reevaluated on Tuesday.

New York Yankees ace Gerrit Cole is smart about his body. He knows when to push it, and when he can't, better than nearly every other pitcher in the game. During moments of great consequence, he's been known to pitch through lower-body issues -- sometimes to his detriment, like during the 2021 Wild Card Game vs. the Red Sox, which Boston fans still refuse to acknowledge ever happen.

Monday night in the Texas heat, carrying a streak of nine straight men retired and 82 pitches into the seventh inning? If something doesn't feel right, he's prone to shut it down.

Just about a half-hour after Yankees catcher Austin Wells was drilled by a pitch in the hand/wrist and stayed in the game, and about an hour and a half after Jazz Chisholm went full tilt into a wayward net, Cole became the first Yankee star to actually exit the game, accompanied off the field by a trainer between the top and bottom of the seventh.

He was shown working out a kink in his calf, attempting to pitch through it, then thinking better of the proposition.

Yankees ace Gerrit Cole exits vs. Rangers with leg injury (calf cramp?)

And just like that, everyone on Yankees Twitter became NFL Injury Doctor David Chao. It's just a calf cramp! See?! Look at how the left metatarsal serves as the pain indicator!!

Fans were left to hope for the best, in both the long term and the here and now. Without Cole, this team's October hopes take a massive hit, especially given the inconsistency of the offense. Welcoming back Luis Gil and Clarke Schmidt in rapid succession won't do anything to calm the masses in this particular situation, either. They need to be additive. They can't replace an ace.

In the short term? The Yankees absolutely cannot afford to lose this game, and Luke Weaver's attempts to cover what likely would've been Cole's final inning resulted in a two-run home run to Wyatt Langford. Getting off light with a cramp diagnosis -- which Yankee fans will be crossing their fingers waiting for until the postgame press conference -- won't feel like quite such a relief if the bullpen can't navigate the endgame here, either.