How Game 2 starter Nestor Cortes matches up with the Guardians
With one win already in the can, the Yankees look to have the upper hand on the Cleveland Guardians again in Thursday’s Game 2.
It is long past time to retire the cult hero status for Nestor Cortes. The funky deliveries have decreased dramatically — perhaps an intentional move by Cortes to distance himself from the novelty act label — but his effectiveness has not. Since coming back from a groin injury that sent him to the injured list at the end of August, Cortes has been terminating hitters with relative ease.
Beginning on Sept. 8, his first start back from the IL, the first-time All-Star has allowed just 12 hits and four earned runs in 27.1 innings, creating a 1.32 ERA and .130 opponents’ batting average. He’s struck out 30 hitters during that time span (including 12 Orioles in his last regular season tune-up) and walked just eight. He has not allowed a home run. He is hot at the right time, and the team across from him certainly won’t have him shaking in his boots.
The Guardians are not a good hitting team, and they’re even worse against lefties. Their collective batting average drops from .259 against right-handers to .240 against left-handers. Cleveland posted a punchless 84 wRC+ and .646 OPS against southpaws, ranking 27th and 28th among MLB teams, respectively. I will remind you here that there are only 30 MLB teams.
This is a somewhat interesting trend given that only three of Cleveland’s regulars — first baseman Josh Naylor, second baseman Andres Gimenez and left fielder Steven Kwan — hit left-handed. It’s not like the Guardians will have to sub out a bunch of lefties to counteract Cortes. In fact, having a bunch of righties ready to face him is part of the problem. This season, Cleveland’s right-handed hitters cobbled together a .234/.294/.348 (.642 OPS) slash line when a lefty was on the mound. Their 81 wRC+ in that situation is the worst in the American League, with only the Marlins saving them from the bottom of the MLB table.
If you heard cries for Cortes to start Game 1 from some analytically-driven corners of the Yankee fan base, this is why. It’s all a moot point now, as Gerrit Cole delivered on his ace status during 6.1 innings on Tuesday, but Cortes is an even worse matchup for Cleveland. Boding even worse for the Guardians, they struggled enormously against the exact pitch types that Cortes relies on.
Cortes is essentially a three-pitch pitcher. While he keeps a sinker and changeup in his back pocket, he now throws both of those on fewer than 5% of his total pitches. That leaves a four-seam fastball (44.0% usage), cutter (29.8%) and slider (18.7%). The Guardians cannot hit a fastball to save their lives. FanGraphs had them at negative-39.5 runs above average on heaters during the regular season. The 96-loss Tigers were the only team that fared worse. Cleveland was also below average against cutters and graded as a measly 0.5 runs above average on sliders.
The fastball thing is very peculiar. Not only are fastballs typically the pitch that big-league hitters handle the easiest, the Guardians are also the youngest team in the majors, and the growing pains for young hitters typically come from seeing elite breaking stuff for the first time. The old adage says that MLB hitters could time up a bullet if it was over the plate, but that does not apply to the 2022 Cleveland Guardians.
Scouts aren’t stupid, either. With this data widely available, it’s no surprise that the Guardians saw the highest percentage of four-seamers among American League teams. They were also one of just two AL squads — again, with the Tigers — to put out a sub-.400 slugging percentage against four-seam fastballs. The Guardians are also dreadful against four-seamers up in the zone. Their overall slugging percentage against four-seamers was .388. In the top rail of the strike zone and the three areas right above it, that number drops to .365.
One would think the Guardians’ saving grace here is that Cortes doesn’t throw very hard. It’s true that the Yankees’ breakout star only averages 91.8 miles per hour on his fastball. It is true that the Guardians slugging percentage jumps up to .409 against fastballs under 92 MPH, but it is also true that that is still the lowest number in the AL.
Cole flipped the script a bit in Game 1, a likely product of the Guardians expecting him to exploit their velocity-based weakness. Even though Cole was sitting around 97 MPH in Game 1, he went to his curveball and slider in several tight spots, opting for the slider as his putaway pitch for the big strikeouts to Will Brennan and Austin Hedges in the second inning with a runner on second, and again to Gimenez to end the third inning with the bases loaded.
How Cortes chooses to attack the Guardians will be fascinating, as the best-of-five series really hinges on this game. Pretty much every coach in the postseason will say that it’s foolish to get away from the things that got you here. For Cortes, the four-seam fastball has been his best pitch all year, and the Guardians’ bats basically become holographic against fastballs. That could either lead Cortes to go to that well over and over again or pump his secondary pitches as a way to surprise the Cleveland lineup. Going with the second option there seems unwise, but it also worked pretty well for Cole, at least when he needed a swing-and-miss.
The final interesting wrinkle is that none of the Cleveland hitters have really seen Cortes that much. Myles Straw, Jose Ramirez and Amed Rosario are the only members of Terry Francona’s roster that have seen Cortes five times or more. Straw and Ramirez are a combined 0-for-15 with five strikeouts, and the all-world Ramirez is responsible for four of those. Rosario is the only person in a Cleveland uniform who can claim any success against Cortes, as he’s gone 2-for-3 with a homer and two walks.
Cleveland is not just going to roll over and die, but they present a clear mismatch for Cortes to attack. This makes the Guardians’ inability to steal Game 1 (in which they kept Aaron Judge in check, too) loom even larger, as they now seem more than likely to head home to Cleveland for Game 3 in an 0-2 hole.
Ironically, the last team to climb out of that hole to win a Division Series was the 2017 Yankees, against none other than Cleveland.
