Nestor Cortes joins Judge on IL
Photo by Johnny Milano/The New York Times (Getty Images)
The New York Yankees placed Nestor Cortes on the 15-day injured list earlier today, with a left rotator cuff strain. The southpaw said that he was feeling an “achiness” in his pitching shoulder especially in between starts. Cortes received a cortisone shot on Tuesday and will not begin to throw for about the next 10 days. Cortes joins Aaron Judge, who was put on the IL Tuesday. In his 11 games started this season, Cortes has a 5-2 record with a 5.16 ERA. In response to this news the Yankees have called up LHP Matt Krook from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre to help in the bullpen. Krook has been in the minors since 2016 and this will be his first time getting called up to the MLB. To this point in 13 games, Krook is 1-1 with an 1.47 ERA pitching 18.1 innings with 35 strikeouts.
Yankees Manager Aaron Boone said in his postgame presser on Tuesday night that they will re-evaluate Cortes in 10 days to see how he is progressing. Boone also said that the team will “go out and play our game, and expect to still go out there and rack up victories.” Nestor Cortes, while answering questions about the injury, said that he believes it to be “general wear and tear” and “that it’s a bummer that I have to sit out for a few weeks…it felt like I was finally getting into a groove of things and pitching better, so I’m just gonna have to wait.”
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Cortes’ last outing was on May 30th against the Seattle Mariners where he went 5 innings giving up 2 earned runs on 5 hits with a solid 6 strikeouts. He was cruising with 7-0 lead going into the fifth inning when a couple of walks to Sam Haggerty and AJ Pollock as well as doubles to Ty France and Teoscar Hernandez gave the Mariners their only 2 runs of the game. Cortes was able to get out of the inning with two key strikeouts of Julio Rodriguez and Eugenio Suarez ending his night as Aaron Boone went to Michael King and Mark Weber for 2 innings each to close out the game.
Cortes’ injury although a huge blow to the Yankees starting rotation, does come at a bit of a fortuitous time for the team as they have a few off days coming up within the next two weeks. Without Cortes the Yankees rotation has Gerrit Cole, Luis Severino, Domingo German and Clarke Schmidt. Most likely for the days that Cortes was scheduled to pitch, the team will probably recall a pitcher such as Randy Vásquez or Jhony Brito. There is also a probability of Aaron Boone deciding to have a bullpen game as well. The Yankees newly signed pitching star Carlos Rodón is still some ways out from making his debut from recovering from his chronic back issue. Rodón threw 20 pitches in a live session yesterday and has a few more of those before another check in on to see how he is doing.
