Nestor Cortes eager to return to mound Saturday
Nestor Cortes of the Yankees looks on on during the seventh inning against the Astros at Yankee Stadium on Thursday. Credit: Jim McIsaac
With their rotation in flux and their season increasingly in the balance, the Yankees on Saturday will hope to find stability in last year’s most consistent starter.
Nestor Cortes Jr. will make his hastened return to the active roster after the Yankees skipped what would have been his third rehab start — the result of Domingo German going to in-patient treatment for alcohol abuse.
In the process, they hope to get a grip on a slippery stretch run: The Yankees entered Friday night’s game (still) in last place in the division and 2 1/2 games out of the third wild card with two other AL East teams ahead of them.
The 2022 All-Star, who is coming off the 60-day injured list after suffering a left rotator cuff strain, threw 49 pitches in four innings in his last rehab start and estimates that he’ll likely be built up to about 60 pitches by Saturday.
“I want these 24 hours to go by as quickly as possible just because the build-up is always — there’s a little bit of anxiety, but excited to be back out tomorrow and hopefully it’s a good one,” Cortes said Friday. “There’s definitely a sense of urgency for sure . . .To put that starting rotation on paper before the season to where it is now, obviously, we’re not meeting our expectations.”
For a while, Cortes was part of that equation, pitching to a 5.16 ERA before getting shut down on May 30 with an injury that cost him just over two months. While he declined to place all of the blame on the shoulder, it’s clear the pain, compounded with a funky delivery that doesn’t deal well with any misfiring parts, helped lead to a loss of command. Hitters had a .253/.318/.450 slash line against him this year, compared to .189/.241/.313 last season, with a slight uptick in his walk percentage.
“I can’t entirely blame how I was feeling because it was kind of my fault — I didn’t say anything earlier, but I guess it definitely did have some play,” he said. “I guess the shoulder stuff I was dealing with didn’t allow me to command the ball as well as I wanted to.”
That actually might be good news for Cortes now; he says he’s pain-free and has good mobility in a shoulder that, at one point, wouldn’t allow him to take off his shirt without pain. He even threw a bullpen session Thursday, he said, and felt no residual soreness the next day.
The Yankees, meanwhile, are in dire need of a boost: Gerrit Cole has been excellent and Clarke Schmidt has been consistent, but the rest of the rotation has struggled. Their 4.50 starting ERA is 16th in baseball.
Carlos Rodon has been inconsistent, German is done for the season and they’re still hoping Luis Severino can turn things around. After giving up nine earned runs in 3 1⁄3 innings in his previous start to lift his ERA to 7.49, Severino allowed a three-run homer by the Astros’ Yainer Diaz in the first inning Friday night and a solo homer by Yordan Alvarez in the fifth that knocked him out of the game..
“Nestor’s a really, really good pitcher in this league,” Aaron Boone said. “I feel like he’s in a good place physically where I do feel like he’s been throwing the ball well in the last month in his build-ups and his lives and his game action. Obviously, not all the way built up yet, but I feel he could be a big lift for us.”
Cortes is slated to go up against Justin Verlander — a very vivid reminder of a trade deadline that hurt the Yankees way more than it helped them. With the Mets clearing house, the Yankees now have the unenviable task of dealing with six extra Cy Young Awards in the American League: an old foe in Verlander, again back in Houston, and Max Scherzer with the Rangers.
“It’s going to be tough for sure,” Cortes said of the new competition. “It’s going to be a tough road, but it’s never easy and we’re getting there.”
Laura Albanese is a reporter, feature writer and columnist covering local professional sports teams; she began at Newsday in 2007 as an intern.
