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The Yankees got another solid outing from Nestor Cortes, fine defensive plays across the diamond and a few timely hits to beat the Nationals 5-2 in Washington D.C. on Monday night.
New York improved to 78-54 on the season and moved to 2.0 games ahead of the idle Baltimore Orioles in the AL East race.
Here are the takeaways…
– Coming off back-to-back starts of seven shutout innings, Cortes allowed a double to Andres Chaparro to start the second but left him stranded despite allowing two hard-hit balls thanks to some fantastic defense. First, Alex Verdugo put his body on the line to make a tremendous grab in left – running face-first into the wall and jarring his left knee in the process. Then Aaron Judge tracked down a ball hit to the deepest part of center field and jumped on the track to record a 408-foot out to end the inning.
The defense came to Cortes’ rescue in the fourth when Judge leaped at the wall in left-center to bring a ball Chaparro hit back into play and fired a good relay to double off the runner at first to end the inning.
In the fifth, Jazz Chisholm misplayed a grounder and made a wild throw to first to put a runner on second base with one out. The third baseman was charged with two errors on the play, giving him four in the last two games. It was no skin off Cortes’ back, he got a swinging strikeout before Austin Wells picked off Juan Yepez at second base to close the frame.
Cortes ran into trouble to start the sixth: a hard single to left and a soft liner that just was fair down the line in right put runners on second and third for the top of Washington’s order. The lefty got back-to-back swinging strikeouts on fastballs, before issuing a walk to bring Chaparro (who drilled two balls earlier) to the plate representing the tying run. Cortes won this battle, blowing a 94 mph fastball at the bottom of the zone by him to leave the bases full.
Cortes left a cutter over the plate to Yepez who clobbered it 432 feet to left for a solo shot in the seventh. His final line: 6.2 innings, one run, four hits, two walks and five strikeouts on 91 pitches (57 strikes).
– Gleyber Torres opened the game by driving a 3-1 fastball up in the zone from Mitchell Parker 366 feet to right field for his 12th home run of the year. The second baseman has turned things around a bit in August, he entered Monday’s game batting .290 (22-for-76) with a .382 on-base percentage for the month.
– In the second, Anthony Volpe singled on a down and in 3-2 fastball, ending an 0-for-9 stretch as he looks to snap out of his funk at the plate (nine hits in his previous 63 at-bats).
DJ LeMahieu then chopped a two-out single to the right side and Verdugo reached on an error, gifting Torres a bases-loaded chance. But the Yanks couldn’t capitalize as a 5-4 fielder’s choice stranded three.
– Volpe dove a double off the wall in the center (404 feet, 108.7 mph off the bat) to start the fourth. He came around to score on a LeMahieu sac fly to double the advantage.
– Wells, leading off the sixth after throwing out the runner at second the previous half inning, homered to right, driving a fastball 401 feet, 106.4 mph. It was the catcher’s 10th dinger of the season.
Volpe followed with a single to center, his third hit of the day, and took second base when centerfielder Jacob Young bobbled the ball and beat the throw with a head-first dive. However, Volpe’s head hit the right shin of Nationals shortstop CJ Abrams. Volpe – like Verdugo earlier – was checked on by the trainers and stayed in the game. One batter later, he stole third, sliding in feet-first this time, and came around to score on LeMahieu’s second sac fly of the night.
Two-out singles from Verdugo and Torres put two on for Juan Soto, but he couldn’t capitalize.
Soto, Judge and Giancarlo Stanton were hitless with two walks and three strikeouts before Judge laced a single in the ninth for his 1,000th career hit. The prolific trio finished the day a combined 1-for-13 and grounded into two double plays.
– Chisholm atoned for his earlier errors in the eighth, turning on a hanging slider on the inside corner for a frozen rope homer (391 feet, 106.7 mph).
– Mark Leiter Jr., who entered for Cortes, got stung for a home run to start the home half of the eighth. After allowing just one run on nine hits in his first 6 innings, the 33-year-old has allowed eight runs (seven earned) on nine hits over his last 5.1 innings.
– Clay Holmes, pitching for the first time since Friday, tacked on a 1-2-3 ninth for his 28th save of the year.
– Dylan Crews, the No. 3 prospect in baseball, went 0-for-3 with a walk and strikeout in his MLB debut for the Nats.
Highlights
MVP of the game: Nestor Cortes
The Yankee defense deserves a big gold star for terrific plays from Verdugo, Judge and Wells, but the left-hander gets the nod for pushing his scoreless streak to 20.1 innings and lowering his ERA to 3.89 on the year with his third straight solid outing.
What’s next
The Yanks and Nats are back in action on Tuesday night for a 6:40 p.m. first pitch.
Gerrit Cole (3.72 ERA and 1.328 WHIP in 58 innings) gets the ball for the visitors for his 12th start of the season. Cole looks to keep the good run going, in four starts this month the veteran has allowed just three runs in 23 innings with 24 strikeouts.
Washington is sending out another lefty in veteran Patrick Corbin (5.73 ERA and 1.542 WHIP over 141.1 innings) for his 27th start. Corbin has been a constant in the Nats rotation the last four years and the results have been consistent, but not ideal: He’s pitched to a 5.74 ERA over his last 120 starts and has led the league in losses every year starting in 2021.