After five games of regular season play, the New York Yankees sit with a 3–2 record in the AL East. Just one game behind the Tampa Bay Rays, the Bombers will look to pick up another win after blanking the Toronto Blue Jays 4–0 on Tuesday, thanks to a stellar starting performance from Nestor Cortes.
The Yankees starting pitching has been inconsistent to start the year, but Cortes provided the first great performance of the season. However, the expectation is the starters will continue to gain momentum barring injury. Lefty starter Jordan Montgomery escaped a potentially significant issue by the skin of his teeth during his start against the Boston Red Sox on Monday.
Montgomery was hit by a 103 mph comebacker in the leg, sending him sprawling to the ground. Monty remained on the ground screaming for a few seconds but managed to shake the injury off and pick himself up.
“Obviously to see him rolling around like that in pain was certainly concerning,” Boone said. “Pretty gutsy effort to kind of walk it off.”
Jordan Montgomery said he had a CT scan and MRI… both came back clean. Swelling is mostly out of his knee. Will play catch today… likely bullpen tomorrow #yankees
— Meredith Marakovits (@M_Marakovits) April 12, 2022
Luckily, Montgomery’s scans came back clean, with swelling concentrated around his left knee dissipating since the incident. The starting pitcher seems to believe he will be ready for his next opportunity to take the mound, but management may take a more cautious approach given it is so early in the season, and they would prefer for his mechanics to be perfect.