SNY | Chelsea Janes: For the first time since the 2025 postseason, Yankees shortstop Anthony Volpe played a competitive baseball game. It happened to be with the Yanks’ Double-A affiliate, the Somerset Patriots, as he starts his rehab assignment after offseason labrum surgery. He said he felt great and called it a big milestone.
Regarding the next steps in his recovery process, Yankees manager Aaron Boone said that he will play minor league games until at least next week. After resting on Wednesday, he will return for five-plus frames on Thursday and Friday, then take a day off Saturday, and play again on Sunday. After Monday’s offday, he’ll likely go to Scranton to continue his rehab. “Probably four or five games next week, then we’ll kind of evaluate and see where we’re at from there,” Boone said.
In the postgame following the Yanks’ exciting win on Wednesday, Boone dropped another nugget: Gerrit Cole will be joining Volpe on the rehab trail with Somerset. It’ll be his first pro start since underdoing Tommy John surgery in March 2025. Obviously he has a long way to go to build up, but it’s a significant milestone for the ace on his journey back to a big-league mound.
NY Daily News | Gary Phillips: After sending Yerry De Los Santos back to Triple-A late on Tuesday, the Yankees announced the promotion of Angel Chivilli on Wednesday to take a place on the roster and in the bullpen. He has pitched 8.1 perfect innings with Scranton so far after a rough spring. The 23-year-old had a 6.18 ERA over 73 MLB games in Colorado in the last two seasons, 2024 and 2025.
“We think there’s more room there for his secondary to become really good pitches for him,” Aaron Boone said. “For him, it’s about controlling the strike zone and command. If he can control counts, he’s got some swing and miss with his secondary stuff. The fastball is big. He’ll be in the mid-to-upper-90s with his fastball, but he needs his secondary.”
New York Post | Mark W. Sánchez: If you thought Ryan McMahon’s recent bunt attempt was bizarre, well, it appears to be part of a broader organizational focus on bunting. Before the Yankees’ official round of batting practice on Tuesday, José Caballero, Cody Bellinger, Jazz Chisholm Jr., Trent Grisham, and Ryan McMahon took turns to lay down bunts against a pitching machine. What does this mean for the Yankees and their 2026 approach? We don’t know, but Austin Wells successfully got on base with a bunt on Wednesday.
FanGraphs | Dan Szymborski: Even though he hasn’t played every day, Ben Rice is terrorizing the league already. Szymborski marvels at his 70 percent hard-hit rate and says he’s here to stay. “If you’re a fan of another team in the AL East, as I am (Baltimore Orioles), you’ve probably been waiting for Rice to come crashing back to Earth. Given how he’s hit in 2026, however, I fear we’ll have to pin our collective hopes on other sources of Yankees misfortune. Ben Rice’s power is real and it is spectacular,” he explained.
Yahoo Sports | Jake Mintz: This is a wonderful tribute to the 103-year-old Rachel Robinson, Jackie’s widow, with a touching article praising her legacy on his day. Shared are stories of how they met, how they fell in love, and how she helped one of the most prominent figures in baseball history through thick and thin.
“Throughout Jackie’s most tumultuous times, Rachel was a rock, there by his side as he broke baseball’s color barrier,” Mintz wrote. It’s definitely worth a read.
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