Nestor Cortes Jr. has been brilliant for the Yankees this season, posting a 1.02 ERA in 17.2 innings in his second stint in pinstripes.
But even he had to reach deep into his bag of tricks to try and get out the red-hot Shohei Ohtani on Tuesday night.
The Angels’ two-way superstar blasted two more home runs in the Bronx on Tuesdat after going deep in Monday’s series opener, so by the time Cortes came in to face Ohtani in the seventh, the lefty was ready to do whatever it took to keep Ohtani in the park.
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After getting ahead of Ohtani 1-2, Cortes slowed down his delivery to a crawl, bouncing his back foot up and down for nearly four seconds before finally lifting his front foot to go into the rest of his windup, but he held that front foot airborne for another several seconds before the home plate umpire called time in the middle of Cortes’ delivery, when nobody has asked for timeout.
Ohtani laughed as he stepped out of the box, and Cortes gave the slugger the exact opposite treatment on the very next pitch, going through his windup at a lightning pace before throwing a pitch inside to even the count at 2-2.
Cortes eventually hung a 2-2 slider over the outer half that Ohtani smacked to the warning track in dead center for a deep flyout, just missing his third homer of the game.
Cortes is known for mixing his arm angles and delivery speeds to keep hitters off balanced, something he showed off in 2019 during his first stint with the Yankees.
“My defenders always tell me they’re not ready, because I get them by surprise,” Cortes said in 2019. “So I can imagine what it does to the hitters.”
Cortes had to take it even further to get out Ohtani, who is a clear MVP candidate that the Yanks will have to contain again on Wednesday night.
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