Amid rough stretch, Nestor Cortes says time for Yankees to ‘flip the page’

Nestor Cortes entered Saturday afternoon’s start in The Bronx with a lot going for him. The Yankees‘ lefty led the league in lowest ERA when pitching at home (1.81) and was facing a Tampa Bay Rays lineup that had the fifth-lowest OPS and scored the fourth-fewest runs.

A lot changed after 4.1 innings of work when the left-hander was tagged for six runs on eight hits, including three home runs.

“It’s tough to pitch in the big leagues when you don’t have your best stuff,” Cortes said after the Yankees 9-1 defeat. “I felt like early on it was pretty good and then lost a little bit of the outside rail with the fastball and was behind the count a lot.”

“Thought the profile of the stuff was there just,” manager Aaron Boone said before taking a long pause, “probably not his best stuff. Just had a hard time finishing some guys. Usually, especially lately, even when he’s had a game when he hasn’t been perfect he still had that kinda swing and miss top of the zone or could get in guys.

“Just having a hard time putting guys away and they made him pay a little bit… overall, just little bit of a grind today.”

Cortes threw a first-pitch strike to 17 of the 22 Tampa hitters he faced, but got into several deep counts against the all-right-handed hitting lineup with pitches thrown way outside the zone. And a couple of walks killed him, especially one with two outs in the fourth.

With two on and two out, his 3-2 cutter down and away to Rays’ No. 9 hitter Alex Jackson carried just over the wall in the right-center gap to put the visitors up 4-0. The ball traveled just 364 feet and was a dinger in Yankee Stadium only. It was also the MLB-leading 14th homer the Yanks have allowed to the opponents’ nine hitters.

But it was Cortes’ sweeper that was especially hit hard – going for the other two home runs in the fifth and a two-out RBI double to open the scoring in the third.

“This is a team that I faced quite a few times already and I feel like they know what my strengths are,” the lefty said. “It’s about being able to command and being able to spot your pitches more than anything else. And that’s what it came down to today, I felt like I didn’t locate as best as I can.”

He needed 92 pitches to get 13 outs and had just five whiffs on 48 swings.

“No matter how many times you face a team, it’s all about when you command it well and able to throw the pitches where you want to throw them,” Cortes said, “and throw some wrinkles in there that’s where you have the most success.”

With the loss, the Yankees dropped their 19th game in the last 30.

“Time to flip the page,” Cortes said. “We gotta be better starting with myself, I think the last two or three hasn’t been great for me, just gotta be better when I’m out there.”

He added: “We’ve been struggling…. We’re one or two games back after today. Everybody is saying how bad we’ve been playing but you look across the league and see we’re right there with them…. This team is just a tick away from being great.”

Boone on Bombers power outage

The Yanks faced a “really good arm” with “really good stuff” in Tampa starter Taj Bradley, that 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 the strikeout ball necessarily today, but that change of shape, he was off our barrel enough to not allow us to really mount much against him either.

“Tough day for us but also, partly, that you got a hot pitcher that came in and executed.”

But the struggles to find consistency outside of Aaron Judge and Juan Soto continued even as the skipper shuffled the lineup around batting Ben Rice leadoff, inserting Austin Wells into the cleanup spot and moving the slumping Alex Verdugo down to the six hole.

On the offense and any possible additions ahead of the July 30 MLB trade deadline, Boone said, “We’re still having our days where we’re scoring a bunch and making it happen. So, we gotta make it happen right now with what we have and try and piece it together.

“The reality is, there are some good things happening with guys. Rice is obviously doing some good things, Wells continues to have good at-bats, even today he probably hit one of the hardest balls of the day behind the Rice double… smoked that ball for the double play.

“I feel like Gleyber [Torres] is gaining some traction where he’s starting to throw some hits and get on base more.”

But Verdugo might be one of the biggest concerns as he has just 16 hits in his last 108 at-bats with just one home run, five RBI and 22 strikeouts for a .148/.207/.213 and.420 OPS slash since June 15.

“Obviously, we gotta get [Verdugo] going more. [Trent Grisham] has been a spark for us down at the bottom, he’s provided some power on base for us,” the manager continued.

“We got enough to get it done, and on a lot of days we are. We just gotta try and get it as best you can everyone clicking. And then you never know what’s gonna happen moving forward, too.”