Nestor Cortes Dominates. Judge OK After Hit-by-Pitch. NY 4 Baltimore 2

June 19, 2024 paperbacklou 2024 0

Nestor Cortes pitched 6 innings of 5-hit shutout baseball against the tough Orioles lineup to carry NY to a 4-2 win on a beautiful, warm, June Tuesday night in the Bronx.

Michael Tonkin and Luke Weaver each pitched a shutout inning of relief. The score was 4-0 NY to the 9th, when Clay Holmes allowed a 2-run homer to make it a game and get Yankee fans extremely antsy, but got the next 3 batters to end it.

Aaron Judge was hit on the hand by a pitch in the 3rd inning by Orioles starter Albert Suarez.  Judge stayed in the game but was lifted for a pinch hitter his next time up in the 4th. This caused anxiety all night for Yankee fans — and calls for retaliation on Yankee twitter, especially after Gleyber Torres was also hit on the hand by reliever Keegan Akin leading off the 5th.

But Judge revealed after the game that Xrays were negative — and a huge sigh of relief was felt all over Yankee Universe.

“I’m definitely pissed,” said Judge afterwards. “A couple of balls up and in — but that’s part of it. They like to throw in.”

“I’m not looking for anything,” added Judge. “I’m more pissed in the moment for myself — nobody wants to get hit; we’re just trying to compete and do our thing — stuff like that happens. We’ve hit plenty of guys before on accident — stuff like that happens.”

NY improves to 51-24 and goes to 2.5 over Baltimore, which falls to 47-25.

1. Nestor Nasty

Good news: Nestor Cortes threw down a terrific start in this important head-to-head against Baltimore. Nestor sported a beautiful light green glove — the color of the Statue of Liberty — and was in command throughout — 6 innings of 5-hit, shutout baseball, striking out 6 and walking nobody.

Nestor pitched around consecutive 1-out singles by Adley Rutschman and Ryan Mountcastle in the 1st, and a leadoff single by Austin Hays in the 2nd, but motored through the 3rd and 4th with 1-2-3 innings.

Nestor easily pitched around a 1-out single in the 5th to Colton Cowser, and pitched around a leadoff single by Rutschman in the 6th — helped by a tremendous defensive play by Gleyber Torres with 1 out.

Nestor left after 6 innings and 105 pitches with a 4-0 lead. He improves his record to 4-5 3.36.

2. Wells Double, Volpe Single Make It 1-0 NY

The Yanks got to Albert Suarez, who came in with a 3-0 1.61 record, in the bottom of the 2nd: Gleyber Torres worked a 1-out walk, and Austin Wells ripped a double down the line in right to put runners on 2nd and 3rd. Anthony Volpe singled to left for a 1-0 Yankee lead.

3. Judge Hit-by-Pitch Starts 3rd Inning Rally

Suarez hit Judge on the hand with a 94-MPH four-seam fastball on a 1-2 pitch leading off the 3rd.

The Yanks got karma and immediate payback: Alex Verdugo singled to right, and Giancarlo Stanton singled to center for a 2-0 Yankee lead.

Ben Rice then singled to right for his first hit in the big leagues, loading the bases with still nobody out.

Gleyber Torres hit a sac fly to right making it 3-0 NY. Austin Wells followed with a strikeout and DJ LeMahieu grounded out to end the inning.

4. LeMahieu Clutch Sac Fly Makes it 4-0 NY

Suarez walked the bases loaded in the 4th — the last 2 walks coming with 2 outs — and was yanked. Keegan Akin came in and got Ben Rice to fly out to end the inning.

But the Yanks got another important insurance run in the 5th — Gleyber Torres was hit on the handby a pitch by Akin to lead off the inning, went to 2nd on a wild pitch, went to 3rd on a groundout by Austin Wells, and scored on a clutch sac fly to center by DJ LeMahieu.

5. Tonkin & Weaver Good

Michael Tonkin pitched around a 1-out walk to Jorge Mateo for a shutout 7th inning.

Luke Weaver allowed a leadoff single to Ramon Urias in the 8th, but picked him off 1st base for the 2nd out — and proceeded to pitch a shutout inning. NY 4 Baltimore 0 in the 8th.

6. Holmes Gets Yank Fans Antsy

Clay Holmes allowed a leadoff single to Gunnar Henderson in the 9th, then a LINE SHOT homer to Anthony Santander and here we go again — 4-2 game and nobody out in the 9th.

Holmes got Cedric Mullins on a first-pitch groundout, but went 3-0 on the next batter, Jorge Mateo — and here we go again; all aboard the Clay Holmes rollercoaster. But Holmes came back with 3 straight strikes — Mateo striking out swinging.

Colton Cowser then hit a hard grounder to 1st that DJ LeMahieu made a tremendous play on for the old ballgame.

The Boxscore

https://www.espn.com/mlb/boxscore/_/gameId/401569562

 

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