Nasty Nestor Returns to 2022 Form in a Dominant 7-0 Victory Over the Marlins

Nestor Cortes delivered a gem as the Yankees opened a three-game series against the Marlins with a 7-0 victory that quite honestly could not have been any easier. This gives the Yankees a 9-2 start which ties for the best start in franchise history with the 1922, 1933, 1949, 1958, 1988, 2003 and 2020 teams. And down in Box Score Briefs, some words about the Guardians’ Shane Bieber and the rash of injuries in MLB, the Mets turnaround, Ronel Blanco’s brush with history, Blake Snell’s debut for the Giants, and the wonder of Elly De La Cruz.

I just wrote on Monday morning, after Luis Gil failed to get through five innings the day before, that the Yankees needed their starting pitchers to start going deeper into games because if not, the bullpen - already a tattered mess due to injuries - was going to be tapped out.

Nestor Cortes heeded the call Monday night with a brilliant performance as he stupefied the awful Miami Marlins across eight shutout, two-hit innings and the Yankees won by a touchdown, 7-0.

“Five wasn’t going to cut it,” Cortes said afterward to reporters, indicating that he knew he had to give Aaron Boone length in order to give the relievers a night off. And did he ever.

This was 2022 Nasty Nestor in every way. He pounded the strike zone all night with a variety of fastballs, cutters, sliders and changeups, using his array of arm angles to throw 70 strikes in 102 pitches, the highest totals of any Yankee starter this season. He didn’t walk a batter and struck out six. It was a thing of beauty, and because he was so efficient, this game took two hours, one minute to play, the quickest the Yankees have played a nine-inning since 1992.

“He kept us off balance,” Marlins manager Skip Schumaker said. “The fastball, changeup and slider were really good, so it messed with our timing. He was outstanding tonight.”

The longest a Yankee starter had gone this season was six innings, twice by Marcus Stroman. Cortes had struggled terribly in the first inning of his first two starts, yielding three runs in each. But the 1-10 Marlins - the team he grew up rooting for while growing up in Miami - were no match for him.

“That was fun,” Cortes said. “These guys have big swings. It felt like there was a couple guys in there that I was able to throw a changeup to. I got into counts where I was able to throw it, and I executed really well.”

April 8: Yankees 7, Marlins 0

Here are my observations:  

➤ Miami starter Jesus Luzardo struggled with his control and he walked three men in the first three innings, but the Yankees did nothing with those opportunities, Aaron Judge killing one with yet another ground ball double play as the Yankees continue to lead MLB in that category. But then in the fourth inning came the breakthrough, a six-run explosion, and not surprisingly the only two hitters who have been consistently good since Opening Day - Anthony Volpe and Juan Soto - had the big blows.

➤ It started with Giancarlo Stanton’s single, a 116-mph laser through the left side. Anthony Rizzo chopped a single over first base which, believe it or not, allowed Stanton to go to third, a rare two-base advance for him. Of course his effort became moot because he just jogged home moments later when Volpe creamed a 1-2 pitch to left for a three-run homer. Alex Verdugo started the next wave of trouble with a double, Jose Trevino walked, and Jon Berti made the first out but he did it wonderfully with a perfect sacrifice bunt to move the runners into scoring position. Gleyber Torres flied out, but Soto hit Luzardo’s next pitch down the line in right and into the bleachers for his first Yankee Stadium homer, a three-run blast that put the game out of reach.

➤ The only other run came in the fifth when Stanton led off again with a hit, this time a double, and he scored on a single by Verdugo. For Stanton, he’s in one of his hot streaks right now as he’s 6-for-12 with a double, two homers and five RBI in the last three games. As we always say with Stanton, you just ride him for as long as you can before he runs out of gas and goes into a three-week coma.

➤ For Verdugo, it’s about time he did something at the plate. He entered the night hitting .143 and was in a 3-for-28 black hole over his previous eight games, but he went 3-for-3 with a walk and now he’s up to .211.

➤ Meanwhile, Judge has really started slowly this year. He’s had two productive games out of 11 - last Wednesday he had a two-run homer and the big RBI double in the 11th inning that keyed the win over Arizona, and Saturday against Toronto he hit a two-run homer and a single. He has drawn 10 walks which leads the AL, but he’s 7-for-40 (.175) and has grounded into an AL-most four double plays.

➤ Before the game the Yankees sent reliever Jake Cousins to Triple-A and signed lefty reliever Josh Maciejewski, then threw him in to mop up the ninth inning for Cortes. In keeping with the night he set the Marlins down in comically easy fashion, four pitches to get three ground outs.

➤ Gerrit Cole threw 25 pitches off flat ground, the first time he has thrown since his elbow problem was discovered in mid-March. He said he felt great, but he’s still nearly two months away from a possible return.

⚾ The Guardians have gotten off to a fabulous 8-2 start considering they began the season on a nine-game road trip and just played their home opener Monday night, beating the inept White Sox 4-0. But they returned to Cleveland with a cloud above because their ace pitcher, Shane Bieber, needs Tommy John surgery and is out for the season.

Bieber, who is a free agent after 2024, started two games, won them both and did not allow a run or a walk in 12 innings while striking out 20 batters. Just incredible stuff. And now he’s done for the year and the early part of 2025. I know we all bitch and complain about the Yankees never-ending injuries, and for good reason, but we also must remember that other teams have them, too, and losing Bieber might be a killer for Cleveland.

⚾ It has been a brutal first couple weeks for injuries around MLB. Obviously the Yankees have their issues with Cole and Jonathan Loaisiga, among others, on the injured list, but look outside the Bronx and it’s happening everywhere.

Perhaps the best pitcher in MLB, Atlanta’s Spencer Strider, will most likely need TJ surgery so he’s done, a massive blow for the World Series contender Braves. Shortstop Trevor Story of the Red Sox, outfielder Luis Robert of the White Sox, infielder Royce Lewis of the Twins, infielder Josh Jung and pitcher Josh Sborz of the Rangers, and pitcher Eury Perez of the Marlins all went down with significant injuries just in the past week.

Since the start of spring training, 33 pitchers have been sidelined by some type of arm injury, be it elbow, shoulder, or forearm. It’s alarming, and we as Yankees fans know that one of the rituals each day is to check to see which Yankee will be going on the injured list because there are times when it feels like a daily occurrence. I’m sure it won’t surprise you that they currently have 10 on the injured list which is the most of any team.

⚾ It is pretty widely assumed that no one will ever break Joe DiMaggio’s record 56-game hitting streak, but the one record that absolutely will never, ever, ever be broken is Johnny Vander Meer’s feat of throwing back-to-back no-hitters in 1938. In fact, it’s almost a certainty that no one will even match that one, though Houston’s Ronel Blanco gave it a hell of a run. He followed up his no-hitter on April 1 with 5.2 no-hit innings Sunday night before Texas’ Adolis Garcia broke it up. Still, Blanco’s streak of 44 consecutive outs before allowing a hit is the longest to begin a season by any pitcher since 1893 when the mound was moved back to its current distance from home plate.

⚾ Blake Snell made his debut for the Giants against the Nationals and it wasn’t great. He lasted three innings and 72 pitches - I’m sure he was on a pitch count - and gave up three runs on three hits and two walks. Washington won 8-1 as Lane Thomas hit a two-run homer and Trey Lipscomb, who I just interviewed in Rochester last week before his call up, had three hits and stole three bases, including a steal of home during a rundown.

⚾ The Mets pulled out a nice 8-7 win in Atlanta, ruining the Braves’ celebration of the 50th anniversary of Hank Aaron surpassing Babe Ruth for the all-time home run lead. Aaron hit his 715th home run on April 8, 1974, one of the most famous moments in MLB history. I remember watching the game that night because NBC - which at the time just did the Game of the Week on Saturday - decided to televise the Braves-Dodgers game in the hope that Aaron would hit the record-breaker, and they were rewarded.

Fifty years later, D.J. Stewart’s go-ahead homer in the eighth for the Mets wasn’t quite as big, but it was important to him because he had started the season 0-for-12 and it gave the Mets a 7-5 lead. As for the Mets, after their terrible start they’ve now won four of five and this one was impressive as they rallied from a 4-0 deficit, fell behind 5-4, but then overtook an Atlanta team probably still in mourning over the Strider news. Brandon Nimmo has started poorly but he went 4-for-4 with a three-run homer and an RBI single that gave the Mets their eighth and decisive run in the eighth inning.

⚾ No one is quite sure what to make yet of Cincinnati shortstop Ell De La Cruz, a player who looks like he was built in a robotics factory. The 6-foot-5, 200-pounder is one of the best athletes in the sport and has every baseball tool imaginable including speed that is nearly unmatched. But he’s also a swing-and-miss machine, and is prone to sloppy and mindless play at times, but I guess that can be attributed to being 22 years old and playing just 108 MLB games since he was called up last year.

Monday night, the De La Cruz experience was in full gear, literally, in the Reds’ 10-8 victory over the Brewers. He went 3-for-4 and scored four runs, stole a base, hit a 450-foot homer to dead center, and then sprinted around the bases for an inside-the-park homer when his sinking line drive got past Brewers center fielder Sal Frelick, who clearly soiled all of us Sal’s.

Here’s the video of the De La Cruz on the inside-the-parker which he completed in less than 15 seconds. Just click the image to watch.