Nestor Cortes He arrived at the start on Saturday afternoon in the Bronx with a lot going for him. Yankees‘The left-hander led the league with the lowest ERA when pitching at home (1.81) and faced a Tampa Bay Rays lineup that had the fifth-lowest OPS and scored the fourth-fewest runs.
Much changed after 4.1 innings of work when the left-hander was charged with six runs and eight hits, including three home runs.
“It’s hard to pitch in the Major Leagues when you don’t have your best stuff,” Cortes said. After the Yankees’ 9-1 loss“I felt like I was doing pretty good at first and then I kind of lost control of the outside fastball and was behind the count a lot of times.”
“I thought the profile of the material was there,” the manager said. Aaron Boone He said before pausing for a long moment, “It’s probably not his best stuff. He just had a hard time finishing some guys off. Usually, especially lately, even when he had a game where he wasn’t perfect, he still had that type of swing and miss at the top of the zone or was able to get guys to score.
“He’s just having a hard time putting guys out there and they made him pay a little bit… overall, it was a little tough today.”
Cortes threw a first-pitch strike to 17 of the 22 Tampa batters he faced, but had several deep counts against the right-handed-hitting lineup with pitches out of the zone. And a pair of walks got him killed, especially one with two outs in the fourth.
With two on and two out, his 3-2 cutter came down and went to the Rays’ ninth batter. Alex Jackson The blast sailed just over the wall in the right-center field gap to put the visitors up 4-0. The ball traveled just 364 feet and was a home run at Yankee Stadium alone. It was also the 14th home run the Yankees have allowed to all nine opposing batters, which is an MLB-leading number.
But it was Cortes’ batter who was hit especially hard, going for the other two homers in the fifth and a two-out RBI double to open the scoring in the third.
“This is a team I’ve faced a number of times and I feel like they know what my strengths are,” the left-hander said. “It’s about being able to control and being able to spot your pitches more than anything else. And that’s what happened today, I felt like I didn’t position myself as well as I could.”
He needed 92 pitches to get 13 outs and had just five strikeouts on 48 swings.
“No matter how many times you face a team, the important thing is to know how to control it well and be able to throw the pitches where you want to throw them,” Cortes said, “and do some difficult things, that’s where you have the most success.”
With the loss, the Yankees lost their 19th game in the last 30.
“It’s time to turn the page,” Cortes said. “We have to improve, starting with me. I think the last two or three games have not been very good for me. I just have to improve when I’m on the field.”
He added: “We’ve had our problems… We’re a game or two behind after today. Everyone says how badly we’ve been playing, but if you look at the whole league, you see we’re on a par with them… This team is one step away from being great.”
Boone on Bombers power outage
The Yankees faced a “really good arm” with “really good stuff” in the Tampa starter Taj Bradleywhich Boone said was able to keep the bats at bay.
“Taj came in throwing the ball really well and that continued today,” Boone said. “It wasn’t necessarily the ball he struck out today, but that change of form, he was just out of our range enough that it didn’t allow us to get much of a ride against him either.
“It was a tough day for us, but also, in part, because we had a hot pitcher who came in and executed.”
But the struggles to find consistency outside of Judge Aaron and Juan Soto It continued even when the captain reshuffled the lineup and batted. Ben Rice opening, insertion Austin Wells at the cleaning site and move the collapse Alex Verdugo to the sixth hole.
On the offense and potential additions before the July 30 MLB trade deadline, Boone said: “We still have our days where we score a lot and make it happen. So we’ve got to do it right now with what we’ve got and try to put the pieces together.”
“The reality is there are some good things going on with the guys. Rice is obviously doing some good things, Wells continues to have some good at-bats, even today he probably hit one of the hardest balls of the day behind Rice’s double… he crushed that ball into the double play.
“I feel like Gleyber (Torres) “He’s gaining some traction and is starting to throw some hits and get on base more.”
But Verdugo could be one of the bigger concerns as he has just 16 hits in his last 108 at-bats with just one homer, five RBIs and 22 strikeouts for a .148/.207/.213 OPS and .420 since June 15.
“Obviously, we have to get (Verdugo) to play more. (Trent Grisham) has been a spark for us at the bottom, he has given us some power at the base,” the manager continued.
“We have enough to do it and many days we do. We just have to try to do our best, keep everyone working. And you never know what will happen in the future.”
