'Pinpoint’ Nestor Cortes delivers Yankees much-needed dominant eight-inning outing
With the Yankees needing some length from a starting pitcher, Nestor Cortes delivered an eight-inning, two-hit performance that allowed the Yanks to cruise to a 7-0 win over the Miami Marlins on Monday night at Yankee Stadium.
“His command was really good, I thought he was getting the ball to spots that he wanted to all night long,” manager Aaron Boone said. “Changeup was a factor for him tonight, but, obviously, really efficient and a big eight-inning start for us.”
Bone said the changeup – which Cortes threw 11 times in the win and induced three whiffs, two foul balls and a called strike – was a pitch they talked about before the game as one they wanted to deploy.
“It was good to see him feature it enough to mix it into the gameplan, I thought he did a really good job using it and making it a factor,” the skipper said.
Entering the game, Cortes had only thrown it twice in his first two starts and only threw 30 changeups in all of 2023. But he said he felt like there were players in the Marlins lineup who “have big swings” and could be susceptible to the offspeed delivery.
“I got into counts where I was able to throw it and I executed it really well, I think that was the biggest thing today: executing the changeup down and away was pinpoint so it was good,” he said.
The lefty agreed with the manager’s assessment of his changeup but also pointed to another pitch that allowed him to dominate.
“I thought the changeup was really good tonight throughout the whole game,” Cortes said, but added “The cutter was really pinpoint for me today, I think that’s what kinda got me over the top. My [velocity] was a little down, but I feel like the cutter was in a good spot. And I was throwing it into good places so that’s kind of what got me through.”
On the 31 cutters, Cortez got seven whiffs (plus three foul balls) on 19 swings and four called strikes, a 35 percent called strike-whiff percentage, per Statcast.
And nobody could argue with the results: just two hits allowed and no walks and not allowing a single Marlin to reach second base.
“It was awesome,” Boone said of the 24 outs he got from his starter in the series opener. “I’ll say it now, we needed it. Those are the big games and now two more into the off day [on Thursday] a little bit of a re-set there, so that was a big outing.”
Cortes said he “knew the bullpen was a little taxed” even with the addition of left-hander Josh Maciejewski, who pitched the ninth inning for his MLB debut, and “knew I had to give them some length.”
“Five wasn’t gonna cut it,” he said. “But, honestly, going into the game you don’t even really think about that. You’re just trying to get as many outs as you can and thankfully I was doing that.”
