COMMAND & CONQUERED
Cortes struggles with fastball as Rays duo strike to sink Yanks
RAYS 7 YANKEES 2
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Nestor Cortes spent the first three innings Saturday pitching without an important ingredient to his success.
By the time he found it, the damage was already done.
Cortes had trouble commanding his four-seam fastball, and notably left two over the heart of the plate that the Rays turned into home runs on the way to a 7-2 win over the Yankees at Tropicana Field.
“It’s tough to pitch in this league without a fastball, that’s for sure,” Cortes said after giving up four runs across 5 ¹/₃ innings. “I felt like every time I would try to throw a fastball in the zone, it was getting hit. I think I wasn’t able to establish it early. That’s why when I would go back to it again, it was getting hit hard.”
Yandy Diaz and Randy Arozarena, who entered the day off to quiet starts, ganged up on Cortes and then came back for more against the Yankees’ bullpen. They both homered off Cortes and combined to go 5-for-7 with three doubles, two home runs, five runs and six RBIs to even the series ahead of Sunday’s rubber game.
“You know what they’re capable of,” manager Aaron Boone said. “They’re really good hitters. Obviously they made a big difference in them winning the game today.”
The Yankees (26-15) got a three-hit day from Anthony Volpe, but only two other hits from the rest of the lineup.
With the Yankees trailing 4-2 in the seventh inning, Juan Soto looked like he might put them ahead with a three-run home run, but his deep fly ball came up just short of the center-field wall.
The Rays (20-20) then broke the game open in the bottom of the inning against reliever Dennis Santana, with Diaz and Arozarena right in the middle of it.
For Cortes, Diaz’s big day was all too familiar. The first baseman entered the game batting .370 with a 1.097 OPS against the Yankees’ lefthander, a trend that continued on Saturday as Diaz crushed his first pitch of the game for a home run.
Cortes issued a pair of walks through the first two innings that did not lead to further trouble, but the third one did. Cortes walked No. 9 hitter Jose Siri to lead off the third inning — unable to find the strike zone with his fastball — which Diaz followed by ripping a double off the base of the leftfield wall.
Arozarena came up next and jumped on a fastball down the middle for a three-run home run that put the Rays back up 4-2.
“Just struggled with his fastball command and really getting it to that top rail early on,” Boone said. “I thought he righted the ship a little bit and got it going in the middle of the game. But just early on, he seemed to have a hard time getting that fastball to the top rail like he normally does so well. A lot of pitches that shot up there that were getting away from him a little bit.”
Cortes said he made a mechanical adjustment with his delivery after the third inning to get more behind his fastball, which allowed him to settle in. But by that point, it was too late.
Faced with an early deficit, the Yankees had come back to take a lead in the second inning against tough righthander Zack Littell. Anthony Rizzo drew a four-pitch walk and Austin Wells shot a double to the gap before Trent Grisham loaded the bases with a two-out walk.
Volpe then lofted a single to left-center to give the Yankees a 2-1 lead, though the opportunity to add on was quickly erased when Grisham took a wide turn around second base and was eventually tagged out in a rundown.
“Just a mistake,” Boone said. “I don’t think he saw the ball well off the bat and probably thinking maybe there’s a play at the plate, which obviously there wasn’t.”