The New York Yankees earned a hard-fought 1-0 victory against the Texas Rangers on Monday.
The hero of the day was pitcher Nestor Cortes, who had a no-hit bid broken in the eighth inning.
It was still a majestic performance, one that included 7.1 scoreless innings and 11 strikeouts.
Recently, there has been a lot of controversy in MLB surrounding the managers’ decision on pitchers with ongoing no-hit or perfect game bids.
In Clayton Kershaw‘s first start of the season, for example, he was removed with 80 pitches and six outs to go to complete a perfect game.
Yankees manager Aaron Boone talked about the situation, specifically stating what he would have done had Cortes not received that hit.
“Aaron Boone: ‘I was gonna let him go until he gave it up. Unless he started to walk a lot of guys and it got out of hand,’” he said, according to The Athletic’s Lindsey Adler.
Aaron Boone: “I was gonna let him go until he gave it up. Unless he started to walk a lot of guys and it got out of hand.”
— Lindsey Adler (@lindseyadler) May 9, 2022
Cortes Was Close To Making History
Cortes was removed at 103 pitches, had he retired Jonah Heim in the eighth, he would have been four outs shy of making history.
It’s important to note, however, that Boone said he would remove him if he ran into control issues.
Cortes walked four hitters on the afternoon.
He shouldn’t jeopardize his team’s winning chances just to protect a pitcher’s no-hit bid, so that last part of Boone’s quote was actually savvy managing.
Even if he didn’t quite make history today, it was still a masterful performance by the Yanks’ unexpected ace.
He is now boasting a minuscule 1.42 ERA on the season, with 42 strikeouts in 32 innings.
He has been lights-out all season, and there is no reason to think he can’t continue dominating.
