BRIDGEWATER, N.J. (AP) — New York Yankees ace Gerrit Cole allowed three runs and three hits over 5 2/3 innings Wednesday in his third minor league injury rehabilitation start.
His outing came in the Somerset Patriots' 6-5, seven-inning loss to Boston's Portland Sea Dogs in the second game of a doubleheader in the Double-A Eastern League.
Cole struck out three and walked none, throwing 45 of 60 pitches for strikes.
“Not a lot of large misses and consistency out of all of the offerings today, which was nice,” Cole said. “I was pleased with the changeup. The shape and the location was pretty good today, probably the best it’s been.”
Cole retired his first 11 batters before Ronald Rosario's single. Johanfran Garcia hit a two-run homer on the next pitch for a 2-1 lead in the fourth and Max Ferguson also went deep on the first pitch, in the fifth.
Cole has a 4.40 ERA in three minor league starts, striking out 10 and walking one in 14 1/3 innings while allowing four homers. The 35-year-old right-hander made his first rehab start on April 17. While position players’ minor league rehab assignments are limited to 20 days, pitchers have 30 days and those recovering from Tommy John surgery may receive three consecutive 10-day extensions.
“It may seem like the same thing over and over again, but that’s the point, it's that we don’t have time up there to push in an extra day should the recovery not be — you got to go and you got to perform,” Cole said. "I want to get there, but I just have to build such a big base in order to get up there, get in the flow, and start to execute so in that regard it’s easy to stay focused on what I got to do, even though when I’m daydreaming sometimes I’m wishing I'm pitching against the Rangers."
A six-time All-Star, Cole is returning from reconstructive elbow surgery on March 11 last year that sidelined him for 2025. The last official outing for the 2023 AL Cy Young Award winner was in Game 5 of the 2024 World Series that Oct. 30.
Playing a day after his 25th birthday, Yankees shortstop Anthony Volpe went 2 for 4. He is batting .303 (10 for 33) with one homer and three RBIs in 10 minor league games starting on April 14.
Recovering from left shoulder surgery on Oct. 14, Volpe could be activated by the Yankees for Friday's series opener against Baltimore in New York.
Yankees left-hander Carlos Rodón is set to make his second minor league rehab start Thursday, for Somerset. He allowed one hit over 4 1/3 scoreless innings on April 24 for High-A Hudson Valley. He struck out four, walked one and threw 43 of 65 pitches for strikes.
Rodón is recovering from surgery last Oct. 15 to remove loose bodies in his left elbow and shave a bone spur. He suffered a setback in late March when he felt tightness in his right hamstring while throwing at the Yankees’ complex in Florida.
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FILE - New York Yankees starting pitcher Gerrit Cole throws against the Chicago Cubs during the first inning of a spring training baseball game, Tuesday, March 24, 2026, in Mesa, Ariz. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — The governor of Sinaloa and nine other current and former Mexican officials were charged with drug trafficking and weapons offenses in a U.S. indictment unsealed Wednesday in New York, accused of aiding in the massive importation of illicit narcotics into the United States.
Some officials were members of Mexico's progressive ruling party, Morena, posing a political conundrum for Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum as she seeks to offset mounting pressures from the Trump administration. Some of those politicians called the indictment a political attack on their party.
U.S. federal officials announced the charges in a news release. None of the defendants were in custody, but Mexico's government said shortly afterward that it had received multiple extradition requests from the U.S. without identifying those requested. It did not say how it would respond.
The 10 people charged in Manhattan federal court are current and former government or law enforcement officials in Sinaloa, including Rubén Rocha Moya, 76, who has been governor of Mexico's Sinaloa state since November 2021.
Charges against Moya included narcotics importation conspiracy and possession of machine guns and destructive devices, along with another conspiracy count. If convicted, he could face life in prison or a mandatory minimum of 40 years behind bars.
Rocha was a staunch ally of Sheinbaum's mentor, former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. The governor enthusiastically backed the ex-president's “Hugs, Not Bullets” policy, which involved avoiding direct confrontation with powerful drug cartels. López Obrador built a political platform by railing against endemic corruption plaguing Mexican politics.
Rocha, the highest profile official charged, said he “categorically and completely rejects” the accusations as baseless and called them an “attack” on Mexico’s ruling party and its leaders.
“It is part of a perverse strategy to violate (Mexico’s) constitutional order, specifically on national sovereignty, ” he wrote in a post on X on Wednesday afternoon. “We will show them that this slander doesn’t have any sort of foundation.”
Some of those named, according to the indictment, have themselves participated in the Sinaloa Cartel's campaign of violence and retribution.
The indictment alleged that they were closely aligned with the Sinaloa Cartel faction known as “Los Chapitos,” which is run by the sons of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, the ex-cartel leader now serving a life sentence in a U.S. prison.
Authorities said the defendants played critical roles in helping the cartel ship fentanyl, heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine from Mexico into the U.S. The Sinaloa Cartel is among eight Latin American crime groups designated as terrorist organizations by the U.S. government.
“As the indictment lays bare, the Sinaloa Cartel, and other drug trafficking organizations like it, would not operate as freely or successfully without corrupt politicians and law enforcement officials on their payroll,” U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton said in a release.
The indictment of Rocha, who was born in the same town as “El Chapo”, was particularly notable because the governor was embroiled in a scandal in 2023 involving the Sinaloa Cartel. His name was published in a letter written by a then-Sinaloa Cartel capo who was kidnapped by leaders of a rival faction of the cartel and handed off to law enforcement in the U.S. In the letter, the capo said that when he was kidnapped he believed he was on his way to meet with Rocha.
In the years since, the cartels two warring factions have ravaged the northern Mexican state in their struggle for territorial control.
Among those indicted, at least three officials –- Rocha the mayor of Sinaloa’s capital, and a senator -– were affiliated with Sheinbaum’s party, Morena. A number of other officials held positions unaffiliated with Mexican parties.
It's not the first time the U.S. has brought drug trafficking charges against ranking Mexican officials. In 2023, Genaro García Luna — a former Mexican public security secretary under former President Felipe Calderón — was convicted by a U.S. court and sentenced to 38 years in prison after he was accused of taking bribes from the Sinaloa Cartel. He denied the allegations and is appealing his conviction.
The indictment unsealed Wednesday come after U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ron Johnson last week said that the U.S. administration would launch an anti-corruption campaign targeting Mexican officials he said were linked to organized crime.
"Corruption not only hinders progress, it distorts it. It increases costs, weakens competition, and erodes the trust upon which markets depend. It is not a problem without victims,” Johnson said.
Sheinbaum responded Monday by saying her government has not seen “any evidence” of the charges of corruption.
“Any investigation in the United States against any person in Mexico must have evidence reviewed by the (Mexican) Attorney General’s Office,” Sheinbaum said.
Sheinbaum’s government has already detained several local officials across Mexico in its ongoing crackdown against the cartels, fueled by pressure by the Trump administration.
The indictment has once again forced the Mexican leader to walk a political tightrope, said Vanda Felbab-Brown, a senior fellow in foreign policy at the Washington-based Brookings Institution who specializes in organized crime.
If Sheinbaum doesn’t go after Rocha it will put strain on relations with the U.S. ahead of renegotiations of a free-trade agreement with the U.S. crucial to the Mexican economy, the analyst said. If she does arrest him, “it carries tremendous consequences for her politically” ahead of next year’s midterm elections in Mexico.
“Is she going to move to arrest Gov. Rocha and the other eight indicted politicians and attempt to extradite him to the United States? This is certainly what the United States wants,” Felbab-Brown said.
Associated Press writers Megan Janetsky, María Verza and Fabiola Sánchez reported from Mexico City, and AP writer Jennifer Peltz from New York.
FILE - Sinaloa state Gov. Ruben Rocha waves as he takes part in an annual earthquake drill in Culiacan, Mexico, Sept. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo, File)
