Inside Gerrit Cole’s grueling rehab — and what he learned about himself to get through it

TAMPA — In the 12 painstaking months since a world-renowned surgeon sliced open his right elbow to reconstruct a torn ulnar collateral ligament that lasted him 2,087 ¹/₃ big league innings, Gerrit Cole has been a dreamer.

He has been a dad. He has been a pitching coach. He has even been a flag football coach.

But he has not been the one thing that made up so much of his identity for so long: an active big league pitcher.

He dreams about what it will look like, feel like and sound like when he returns to a major league mound for the first time since Tommy John surgery, perhaps as soon as May. He dreams about the emotions of the last time he was on that mound — Game 5 of the World Series in October 2024 — focusing on how special it was to pitch on such a meaningful stage rather than the nightmare it turned into. He thinks about all the little things he grew to miss during the time the former AL Cy Young Award winner was robbed of his greatest ability: taking the ball every five days and pitching like one of the game’s best.