NY Post | Greg Joyce: Giancarlo Stanton has been out since the end of April with a calf strain, but he isn’t quite where he needs to be to resume running and get close to a return. MRI results have not been clean, showing the strain still as recently as last week, and the team will not let him ramp up from hitting and working on plyometric exercises until one comes back clear. The one bright side is that since he’s been able to stay in the cage, he should be near-game ready as soon as he can get his legs under him enough to run down to first.
MLB Trade Rumors | Darragh McDonald: There was speculation that the Yankees might elect to skip Gerrit Cole’s final rehab start and bring him back into the Major League rotation, and they made that official as Aaron Boone confirmed before Tuesday’s game that Cole will be back and starting on Friday in the series opener against Tampa Bay. Boone noted that the team felt Cole “has done everything he needs to be ready to compete now at this level.” Cole’s final tune-up was on Saturday, and he tossed 5.1 innings of one-run ball with six strikeouts.
NY Daily News | Gary Phillips: David Bednar has gotten himself in hot waters with his Houdini act flopping of late, but he managed to pull off the stunt again in Monday’s win in a gutsy outing that took 36 pitches (and still allowed the one insurance run the team had to score). Bednar battled back from a 3-0 count to George Springer to strike him out on three straight splitters, a risky move with runners already on first and second, but it paid off. All of the theatrics with Bednar’s outings have gotten old though, as the closer has struggled immensely of late. Only the relative struggles of the bullpen collectively have prevented someone else from leapfrogging him for the position, but if he doesn’t straighten out his act that may not be the case for long.
MLB.com | Bryan Hoch: Everyone remembers Boone’s infamous “Savages in the Box” rant from the 2019 season, and we got a bit of a sequel on Tuesday with the same umpire from that game in the Bronx. Brennan Miller wasn’t behind home plate this time, but he made two critical calls: first ruling Anthony Volpe out on a stolen base attempt in the fourth inning that the Yankees challenged but lost and then ruling a Jazz Chisholm Jr. liner caught by Daulton Varsho in the seventh to end the inning. The Yankees had no challenges left for the latter call, and an irate Boone got himself ejected for some condescending comments. Boone later admitted that he “probably overreacted a little bit” when asked about the incident after the game.
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