The Angels’ Maddon believes Ohtani’s tip turned into another shutout attempt after the Yanks’
Nestor Cortes is struggling with some solid pitches in 2022. But with all due respect to the likes of Michael Kopech and Cal Quantrill, none compare to Shohei Ohtani, who the Angels outplayed in Thursday’s opener in the doubleheader. It didn’t matter; Ohtani handled the offense with ease and Cortes turned another masterpiece in the Yankees’ 6-1 win.
Nestor’s first test came in the opening frame when he was tasked with leading the Angels’ intimidating frontline trio of Taylor Ward (228 OPS+ from inception through 2022), Ohtani (American League MVP in 2021) and Mike Trout (existing member) to observe the inner circle of the Hall of Fame). The results: strikeout, groundout, strikeout.Ho-um, right?
Despite excellent numbers in 2022, Ohtani wasn’t nearly as sharp as Cortes. Cardinals veteran Matt Carpenter started in pinstripes there for the first time, and after working down the right flank for 11 pitches, he hit his 25th career leadoff home run to give New York a 1-0 lead bring.
As a result, Carpenter matched his 2021 performance in St. Louis (three home runs) in 232 fewer plate appearances.
Another man who has worked hard to get through a disappointing 2021 is Gleyber Torres. A few batters later, he got his chance against Ohtani and threw a Four Bagger himself: To play a game similar to Carpenter’s comparison, Gleyber went from 9 homers in 516 plate appearances in 2021 to 10 in 169 on the dish. Performances in 2022. To say the 25-year-old needed a comeback year like this after a couple of lackluster seasons is an understatement. Now Torres just has to last the full 162.
Cortes got out of two jams in the next two innings to keep the Halos off the board. Two weak singles and a two-out walk against Juan Lagares loaded base for old friend Andrew Velazquez, but thanks to an excellent save from Anthony Rizzo, the runners were stranded. Then, two in the third, Trout went on foot and Matt Duffy singled to give Luis Rengifo a scoring opportunity. Cortes held his ground and put a weak grounder on the plate, which Jose Trevino gloved and threw to Rizzo, ending the inning.
Although Ohtani stranded some of his own runners in the second round, the Bronx Bombers lived up to their name on their next opportunity against him. The next player to go deeper was the biggest bomber of them all:
That’s No. 19 of the 2022 season for Aaron Judge, who continues to hit opposing pitchers. Only one other player has reached 15 (Mookie Betts).
The Yankees carried Ohtani off the mound in the fourth as Aaron Hicks and Treviño led the inning with singles. An RBI double by Marwin Gonzalez against José Quijada made it 4-0, New York, and ended Ohtani’s day with four runs allowed on eight hits and one walk with just two strikeouts and three swings and penalties in three innings.To add salt to the wound, Cortes took him off first base to also finish a game in fifth. As I personally enjoy watching Ohtani ply his craft on both sides of the ball, I would normally be put off by him. But against the Yankees? I’m not sorry at all. Save it for Houston!
Meanwhile, Cortes kept rolling with more shutout balls. He shut out the Angels with seemingly absurd ease in the final two frames of his seven-inning jewel. Cortes only threw four (!) pitches in a perfect sixth and seven in a seventh. The left-hander’s closing line shone: five hits, two walks, seven strikeouts and seven zeros on the scoreboard.
Cortes now has a 1.50 ERA and a 2.49 FIP on the season. He was masterful and, as PSA’s Joe LoGrippo will describe tomorrow morning, is unlikely to be on track to start the All-Star Game like any pitcher in the American League. Nestor forever.
The Yankees scored in the fifth against the “27. Angels’ man, Jhonathan Diaz. Thanks to both talent (a home run by DJ LeMahieu) and luck (a double-play ball by Treviño that hit the ref for an infield single and a flyball by Ward), the lead increased to 6-0. Safe runs like this were greatly appreciated later in the ball game when Clarke Schmidt was down and Wandy Peralta had to come in with loaded bases, two outs and a run already. If those runs hadn’t been in the fifth inning, I might have been more of a player, but instead a flyball ended the eighth for the score of 6-1.
At the beginning of the ninth, it started to rain in earnest, causing a delay of an hour and a half.It wasn’t clear if play would resume (forget the second-half doubleheader), but it cleared up enough for Peralta to return to the mound. Once there, he shut out the last breath of the angels in seven minutes.
The Yankees are now a remarkable 35-15, good for the best record in baseball. The W achieved its 12th straight win of the year in 16 attempts; they lost only two of them (12-2-2). That’s an impressive feat for the first two months of 2022.
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