Yankees need more junkyard dogs like Nestor Cortes (and Jake Bauers)
Nestor Cortes of the Yankees walks to the dugout after the fourth inning against the Astros at Yankee Stadium on Saturday. Credit: Jim McIsaac
For years, Aaron Judge has rightfully been the face of the Yankees: towering and powerful and reminiscent of the franchise’s old dominance.
There’s nothing wrong with that, by the way; even on days like Saturday, when Judge hit two long flyouts but went hitless in the Yankees’ 3-1 win over the Astros, his presence makes anything feel possible. It was Judge whose second half all but singlehandedly dragged the stumbling Yankees into the playoffs last season, and when he missed 42 games with a torn ligament in his right big toe this year, they lost their flight plan.
But if Judge is the team’s face, Nestor Cortes should be its current identity.
“I play with a chip on my shoulder every time I’m out there,” said Cortes, who came back from two months on the injured list and, for four innings, dominated through grit and guile despite skipping his third rehab start because Domingo German entered in-patient treatment for alcohol misuse.
“Everybody is grinding,'' Cortes added. "Everybody is trying to get through what they’re going through.”
If the Yankees are going to make the playoffs this year, it won’t be because they pummeled their opponents into oblivion. And given that Judge likely will deal with chronic toe pain for the rest of the season (at least), it’s not fair to expect him to replicate last season’s Atlas-like performance. No matter how broad they are, he can’t be the only person carrying this franchise on his shoulders.
Instead, it’ll be up to guys like Cortes and Jake Bauers and Michael King to help with the burden — which they all did Saturday, when Cortes allowed a single hit, Bauers homered for the third day in a row and King used a nasty changeup to strike out Jose Altuve with the tying run on base in the eighth.
But Cortes’ mentality feels especially key. The 2022 All-Star was the Yankees’ most stable rotation presence last year, and his particular underdog story has imbued him with the sort of toughness the Yankees will very much need to adopt during any potential stretch run. He was a Rule 5 draft pick, he’s been designated for assignment, he’s been traded and he’s been outrighted off a 40-man roster. He’s a shifty soft-tosser with a junk-ball mentality and junkyard defiance.
Notably, he's a consistent starter in a rotation that, right now, has only two other consistent starters.
“It looked like he was painting corners and not giving a whole lot of pitches to hit," Bauers said. "It’s extremely, extremely impressive.”
Thanks to his hastened return from a rotator cuff strain, Cortes was limited to 64 pitches, but he made the most of them, allowing one run and one hit with a walk and eight strikeouts.
He didn’t overthink the truncated first half of his season — one in which injury took its toll on his command, leading to a 5.16 ERA. Admittedly stir-crazy after sitting for more than 60 days, he still managed to control his emotions. His fastball had life. He took on future Hall of Famer Justin Verlander, who allowed only two runs in seven innings, and was the better pitcher.
“That’s Nestor right there at his best,” Aaron Boone said. “Obviously, he’s not built up yet, but that’s what it looks like . . . It’s been why we’ve been looking forward to getting him back. Because we know what he’s capable of.”
Because of that — and because of a number of clutch performances from non-headliners, really — the Yankees were able to take two of the first three games against the Astros. Bauers, especially, has played a significant role — taking over first base as Anthony Rizzo deals with post-concussion syndrome and doing it with aplomb.
Want proof? Judge has the highest weighted runs created on the team with 184. In second place is Bauers — the guy who didn’t even make the roster out of spring training — with 116, according to FanGraphs. If that caught you by surprise, don’t worry. His own manager has been surprised by him, too.
“I didn’t necessarily see this coming,” Boone said of Bauers, whose solo home run in the fifth inning gave the Yankees a 2-1 lead. In Triple-A, “all the reports were ‘this is real and he looks really good.’ He’s come up and really impacted the ball and had really consistent, quality at-bats.”
(The reports were right.)
None of this is flashy in the way the Yankees are used to. It’s not Gerrit Cole’s dominance, or Judge and Giancarlo Stanton and their tape-measure home runs. And sure, the Yankees will need plenty of all that, too, if they’re going to make a real run at this thing.
But they’ll also need a whole lot more of Cortes and Bauer and whoever else knows how to play well when the odds aren't exactly stacked in your favor. On Saturday, their starter showed them the way.
Laura Albanese is a reporter, feature writer and columnist covering local professional sports teams; she began at Newsday in 2007 as an intern.
