On Friday afternoon, theNew York Yankees took on the Kansas City Royals, posting 12 runs against them and allowing just two. The Bombers are currently on a seven-game winning streak and have won nine of their last 10.
With Nestor Cortes on the mound, he recorded yet another efficient performance, despite allowing eight hits and striking out only three batters. After initial trouble to start the game, the Yankees blew it open in the 7th inning, tallying nine runs courtesy of a few homers and quality contact hitting.
Good news and bad news for the Yankees:
Cortes has been phenomenal this season, but Kansas City was on his stuff to open the game on Friday, as he noted after the win.
“For the first two innings they were on my stuff,” Cortes said. Obviously you have to make adjustments. I started attacking the outside part of the plate more, and it gave me better results.”
As mentioned above, Cortes allowed eight hits, but he only allowed one earned run over 5.0 innings and 82 total pitches. Cortes didn’t plenty to allow his team to rack up a lead, but they waited until late in the came to find their bats.
“You want to come out and start strong,” Rizzo said. “Obviously the first inning to get three runs for Nestor, who obviously grinded today, whenever you can get our staff runs early, so they can go out and pitch is nice. Judgy breaking it open in the seventh, and us scoring nine late, was another energizing thing for this team.”
Offensively, the Yanks were fantastic, with three batters recording two hits, including DJ LeMahieu, Giancarlo Stanton, and Isiah Kiner-Falefa. Aaron Judge recorded three runs, Anthony Rizzo two, Gleyber Torres two, and Kyle Higashioka three. The team only struck out seven times on the day, posting 11 hits.
The Bombers have been on an absolute tear in the batter’s box recently, recording double-digit points in four of their last five games.
The bullpen was also great, striking out two batters and allowing just two baserunners over the final three innings of an eight-inning game.
There wasn’t much bad news in the win, especially with Joey Gallo resting as Stanton featured in right field. Gallo came in as a pinch-runner at the end of the game, and Gleyber Torres launched a two-run homer one pitch later.