Nestor Cortes Wasn't Thrilled With his Role in Chicago, But He Pitched Great

Offense was hard to come by for both teams as the Yankees took two of three from the Cubs - and if Gleyber Torres wasn’t such an unreliable fielder, it might have been a sweep. Anyway, thanks to some help from the Rays against the Orioles, the Yankees maintained their half-game lead in the AL East. Lets get to it.

There were a couple of very interesting things that came out of Saturday afternoon’s victory over the Cubs which enabled the Yankees to end a three-series losing streak.

We saw a potential strategy the Yankees could employ in the postseason as a way to cover up the glaring warts in their bullpen - the pitching piggyback where two starters cover the bulk of the game.

The reason the Yankees did this in Chicago was solely because Clarke Schmidt was making his first start since late May when he suffered a lat injury which derailed a season that had started so well for him. They wanted to limit him to around 70 pitches, and with Luis Gil also back from the injured list, the Yankees have six healthy starters so they took Nestor Cortes out of the rotation for this go-around and had him be the piggyback option for Schmidt.

It worked to perfection. Schmidt pitched 4.2 shutout innings, then Cortes pitched 4.1 shutout and hitless innings and the Yankees didn’t even need to turn to their closer-by-committee to finish the game.

Assuming everyone stays healthy over the final three weeks, I think you might see this again in the playoffs, perhaps for a Schmidt start, maybe a Gil start. Or hell, maybe a Carlos Rodon start if he has one of those days where he’s pitching terribly as we know he is occasionally prone to do.

However, in a rather surprising revelation, Cortes was not thrilled by this maneuver, and he did not mince words after the game.

“Obviously, I was upset. I feel like amongst all the starters, I’ve been the workhorse here,” Cortes said. “Once Cole went down, they picked me to be the Opening Day starter; not necessarily the No. 1, but the Opening Day starter. I had to switch my routine there, and now they do this.

“I’m never going to back down from a challenge, I’m never going to leave my teammates out to dry. You’re always going to get my best effort, no matter if I’m happy or not. That’s what I did today. I just came out there and proved that I can be put in any situation, and from here on out, if that’s what’s my role, then I’ll accept it.”

Look, I get that these guys all have their routines, but Cortes shouldn’t be pushing back on this. There’s a chance he won’t even have a spot in the rotation in the postseason, so he should embrace this idea because it might be what gets him on the playoff roster.

If the Yankees have to play the best-of-three wild-card series, I would guess the three starters (if necessary) are Gerrit Cole, Rodon and Schmidt. If they advance to the best-of-five divisional series, you only need four starters and Gil and Marcus Stroman would likely get into the mix, and here’s why: Of all the starters, Cortes seems like the one who can best adapt to any role. You sure as hell can’t do this with Rodon or Stroman, and maybe not Gil.

So Nestor needs to take a breath, and as he said himself, he needs to be willing to do anything to help the team and if that means bringing some stability to this lousy bullpen, so be it.

Sept. 6: Yankees 3, Cubs 0

The Lead: Dream Weaver

Luke Weaver got the first chance to prove that almost anyone is better than Clay Holmes as the closer, and Weaver’s audition went well enough. He was handed a three-run lead in the bottom of the ninth, struck out the first two men on eight pitches, but of course, since his role was Yankee closer, you knew it wouldn’t be easy.

He walked Cody Bellinger, then needed 11 pitches to finally get Isaac Paredes to ground to Gleyber Torres up the middle and Torres made a nice play to throw him out and end the game.

I loved how honest Weaver was when he was asked what it was like to record the first save of his MLB career, doing it in the same ballpark where he made his MLB debut with the Cardinals back in 2016.

“Well, I could give you the correct answer - the professional answer — or I can give you an actual answer: I couldn’t see straight,” Weaver said with a laugh. “I was blacked out for the most part. I was on pure adrenaline. But it was a great time. It’s an honor to be able to go out there and try to get three of the most important outs in the ballgame and try to get the momentum going on our side.”

Game notes and observations:

➤ Weaver completed an outstanding day for the pitching staff as it held the Cubs, a team that had been killing the ball and scoring a ton of runs the last couple weeks, to one hit. Luis Gil returned to make his first start since Aug. 20 when he was awful against the Guardians and it was revealed that he sustained a back strain and he dominated through six innings, allowing only a Bellinger double and two walks while striking out seven. “I thought he looked great,” Boone said. “I thought his stuff was excellent. … He came out with a lot of life to the fastball. It was one of his better fastballs of the year, which is obviously a really good pitch for him. It was high-90s. Looked like the shapes of them were really good. Came out on the attack.”

➤ Jake Cousins walked a batter in the seventh, Tommy Kahnle pitched a superb 1-2-3 eighth, and Weaver closed it out while Holmes watched the bullpen which, I’m sure, made us all feel good.

➤ The wind was blowing in at Wrigley and it muted the offense on both sides. The Yankees had only seven hits, and they scored in only one inning as all three runs came in the third against Cubs starter Jordan Hicks. In succession, Torres led off with a walk, Juan Soto singled, Aaron Judge hit an RBI double, and Austin Wells had a two-run single and that was it. Otherwise it was eight zeroes, but on this day, it didn’t matter.

➤ Very cool day for ex-Cub Anthony Rizzo who played for the first time at Wrigley since the Cubs traded their World Series hero to the Yankees in 2021. The team played a tribute video on the big scoreboard, and then the fans gave him a hearty standing ovation before his first at bat. He had a single and a walk but did not score.

Sept. 7: Yankees 2, Cubs 0

The Lead: The Piggyback Worked

Schmidt’s return to the rotation after more than three months away could not have gone better. He threw 75 pitches and gave up just four hits and a walk and if Soto hadn’t made a poor play on a catchable fly ball in the fifth which would have been the third out, Schmidt would have been the winning pitcher. He fell that one out short.

Then Cortes took over, making his first relief appearance since 2021, and he was even better. He threw only 48 pitches to get his 13 outs and did not allow a hit and walked only one.

“I have no idea (how it’s going to play out),” said Cortes, who has thrown a team-high 159 innings and has a 4.08 ERA. “This one caught me by surprise, so we’ll see. I know they told me that I’m starting against Boston, but after that, with a six-man rotation and off days in between, guys are going to get extra days and I don’t think that’s necessarily the right move, so we’ll see.”

Boone knew Cortes’ feelings about this, but he essentially said too bad, which I appreciated. “I’m sure he wasn't thrilled about it this turn,” Boone said. “But you’ve still got a job to do, and he went out and excelled at it.”

Game notes and observations:

➤ This was the Yankees 12th shutout, and the fourth time this season they’ve pitched back-to-back shutouts. And one of the keys is when Cortes entered after Soto turned Patrick Wisdom’s fly ball right up against the right-field foul line wall into a two-out triple. Cortes then got Christian Bethancourt to pop out to short to strand the runner.

➤ Good thing the pitching was great again because the offense stunk again. The Cubs’ Javiar Assad yielded just one earned run on three hits and three walks in 5.2 innings and Chicago’s bullpen chipped in 3.1 innings of shutout, one-hit, three-walk ball.

➤ In the first, Torres led off with a single, Soto walked, and they moved up on a wild pitch. Judge whiffed (he’s still in a slump and hasn’t homered in 11 games) and Torres then scored on Wells’ groundout. The other run came in the sixth and it was a gift. Judge walked and with two outs, Jazz Chisholm singled. And then on a successful double steal, Cubs catcher Bethancourt threw the ball into left field trying to get Judge and he jogged home.

➤ Wells threw out two base stealers, Nico Hoerner in the fourth and then speedy Pete Crow-Armstrong in the fifth, and that was no easy task because both are great base stealers. Had he not nailed PCA, he would have scored on Wisdom’s hit so that was a big one. PCA had been 26 of 27 on stolen base attempts and is one of the fastest players in MLB.

➤ Before the game, the Yankees activated Schmidt and Ian Hamilton and DFA’d relievers Nick Burdi and Phil Bickford. Ron Marinaccio had already been sent down to create the spot for Gil.

➤ This win clinched the Yankees’ 32nd consecutive winning season (since 1993). It’s the second-longest such streak in MLB history behind only the franchise’s own streak of 39 straight winning seasons from 1926-1964. It is certainly impressive, but again, there has been only one championship since 2000. Winning is great, winning championships is how the Yankees are measured.

Sept. 8: Cubs 2, Yankees 1

The Lead: Offense Continued to Stink

The Yankees won this series, but it sure wasn’t because of its prowess as hitters. With the wind blowing in all weekend at Wrigley, offense was naturally affected, but still, for the Yankees to score only six runs and win twice, that was something. Hey, even more incredible, the Cubs scored only two runs and they won a game.

That’s right, the Cubs scored in one of the 27 innings that were played - both in the first inning of this game against Gerrit Cole, both unearned thanks to more Torres sloppiness in the field - and that was it. They had 26 zeroes including the last eight Sunday, but the Yankees couldn’t take advantage.

They had just six hits and one walk against Cole’s good buddy and ex-Yankee and ex-Pirate teammate, Jameson Taillon, but even on a day when Cole was very good, his effort was wasted. Thankfully, the ever annoying Rays weren’t quite as annoying over the weekend as they beat the Orioles for the second day in a row, enabling the Yankees to remain a half-game up in the division.

Game notes and observations:

➤ In the first inning, Cole should have come out fine. Ian Happ led off with a double but then made a stupid baserunning mistake and got thrown out at third on a grounder hit to Anthony Volpe. After a flyout, Bellinger hit a routine grounder to Torres who just flat out booted it, so the inning continued and Cole had to throw 17 pitches he shouldn’t have had to throw. Ten came when Cole could not put away ex-Yankee Mike Tauchman who worked a walk to load the bases, and Paredes came through with a soft single to center on a ball that he thought would be caught by Judge, but it dropped in front of him and two runs scored. “That (inning) kind of stunk,” Cole said. “I had a couple opportunities to pick us up and get us out but I just didn’t make enough good pitches.”

➤ Cole retired 15 of the last 16 batters he faced after that including the last 12, but Torres’ fielding once again burned the Yankees. Yes, he’s been hitting much better lately, but his never-ending ups and downs in the field are the one thing we’re not going to miss, assuming he’s not back next year. “I think he didn’t make a quick enough decision to break in where you get that short hop and it just kind of ate him up a little bit,” Boone said. “Unfortunate.” Yeah, it was.

➤ The Yankees only run came in the second as Chisholm doubled, took third on Rizzo’s single and scored on Volpe’s sacrifice fly. That was it. That was your scoring for the day.

➤ Taillon has certainly enjoyed pitching against the Yankees. The last time he faced them was last year for the Cubs and he threw eight scoreless inning.

➤ Naturally, in a non-save situation with the Yankees losing, Holmes pitched an easy 12-pitch 1-2-3 eighth inning with two strikeouts. Because of course he did.

➤ The Yankees went 1-for-8 with runners in scoring position and were 3-for-20 in the series. They had two men on in the third but Wells and Stanton failed to deliver. In the sixth, Stanton, who is in a dreadful slump (1 for his last 19 and this was the one), doubled, but Chisholm and Rizzo failed to get him home. And in the ninth, with pinch runner Duke Ellis at second, Volpe struck out to end the game.

➤ Over the last two weeks, Soto his hitting .217 with one homer, and Judge is hitting .186 with no homers. The Yankees are 5-7 in those games.

It’s back to Yankee Stadium this week for a seven-game homestand that begins with three against the Royals and ends with four against the Red Sox.

Kansas City, a team the Yankees could possibly see in the postseason, is comfortably in the second AL wild-card spot, 2.5 ahead of the Twins and six games clear of the Tigers who are on the outside looking in. But the Royals have designs on stealing the AL Central from Cleveland. They beat the Guardians three games in a row from Aug. 26-27 and were tied for the lead, then went on a disastrous seven-game losing streak. That has now been followed by a four-game winning streak including a three-game sweep of the Twins over the weekend, so they are within 2.5 games of Cleveland.

When the Yankees played the Royals in June, they won the first three games and should have completed the four-game sweep but, stop me if you heard this before, Holmes blew the save as he gave up two runs in the bottom of the ninth to lose 4-3.

The Royals are led by Bobby Witt, who figures to finish second to Aaron Judge in the AL MVP vote. Witt is one of the best players in MLB and he’s having an incredible season as he’s batting .336 with a .992 OPS, 30 homers, 98 RBI, and 28 stolen bases. Salvador Perez has also been great as he has 25 homers and 95 RBI, but the loss of first baseman Vinnie Pasquantino, who had 97 RBI, is a big blow for the Kansas City offense.

The pitching matchups are as follows: Monday at 7:05 on YES it’s Carlos Rodon (4.19 ERA) against Brady Singer (3.35); Tuesday at 7:05 on YES it’s Marcus Stroman (4.03) against Seth Lugo (3.05); and Wednesday at 7:05 on Amazon Prime it’s Luis Gil (3.24) against Cole Ragans (3.33). In case you’re wondering, these are Kansas City’s top three starting pitchers.