The New York Yankees are scheduled to face off against the Baltimore Orioles in a three-game series starting on Thursday. Unfortunately, Baltimore is expecting some severe weather, forcing the Orioles to postpone the game.
Instead, the two teams will face off at 3:05 PM on Friday afternoon to kick off the series. Nestor Cortés will take the mound against Cole Irvin, who gave up six earned runs and eight hits across 4.0 innings in his first start against the Boston Red Sox this year.
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The Yankees can rely on Nasty Nestor:
On the other hand, Nestor Cortés was excellent against Philadelphia to open the series, giving up just one earned run across 5.0 innings, striking out three batters, and giving up seven hits. While Philadelphia did log some decent contact against Cortes, he managed to escape unscathed and efficiently work his way out of a few tough situations.
Nestor is looking to build off a tremendous 2022 season, where he posted a 2.44 ERA and 9.27 strikeouts per nine over a career-high 158.1 innings. Cortes utilizes a unique wind-up and pitch sequence to confuse batters and generate weak contact. He’s had some issues giving up home runs in the past, but those problems are well behind him, giving up less than one per nine innings last season.
Expect manager Aaron Boone to continue testing different alignments in the outfield, with Aaron Hicks and Isiah Kiner-Falefa getting action recently. However, third baseman Josh Donaldson left Wednesday’s game prematurely with a lower leg issue, so that will be an injury to monitor heading into the second half of the week.