Gerrit Cole, the New York Yankees ace starting pitcher and the reigning AL Cy Young winner, is set to make his season debut against the Baltimore Orioles on Wednesday.
Ahead of his first start of 2024, Cole has +20000 odds to repeat as the AL Cy Young winner.
UCL soreness is what kept Cole off the mound through the first 75 games of the Yankees' season, a rare long-term injury when considering how he made at least 30 starts in each of the last six seasons, excluding the pandemic-shortened 2020 campaign.
Cole will join a Yankees pitching staff that has allowed the fewest runs per game at 3.38 per contest. The Yankees staff also ranks in the top five in WHIP and has allowed the fourth-fewest total hits.
The Yankees pitchers have lacked so far this season in the strikeout department, ranking seventh in total strikeouts, 17th in strikeouts per nine innings, and 22nd in strikeouts per walk. They've also allowed the seventh-most walks in total, three more than the lowly Oakland Athletics through 74 games played for each team.
Luckily for the Pinstripes, Cole has led MLB in strikeouts in two of the past five seasons, and he hasn't had fewer than 220 strikeouts in a season since 2017, not counting the pandemic-shortened 2020 campaign.
Plus, Cole's strikeout-walk ratio last year was 4.63, which would be the best among Yankees pitchers to pitch at least 20 innings through mid-June. It should be noted that Cole's 4.63 K/BB ratio was his worst since 2018.
The Yankees rotation already features some talented pitchers in Nestor Cortes, Carlos Rodon, Marcus Stroman and rookie sensation Luis Gil, but Cole's season debut will cover for the few weaknesses the New York pitchers have shown thus far.
Odds displayed within this article were correct at the time of writing and are subject to change.