MIAMI — Saturday was supposed to serve as a homecoming for Nestor Cortes. Instead, he will watch his Yankees play the Marlins from the injured list.
The Yankees shelved the Cuban native and Hialeah resident on Friday, a day before he was slated to make his first start in Miami as a big leaguer. Cortes is once again dealing with a left rotator cuff strain, which sidelined him from May 30 until Aug. 5.
“I was really looking forward to pitching here for the first time,” Cortes said Friday. “It’s tough to swallow this right now.”
Cortes returned last Saturday and pitched well against the Astros, allowing just one run over four innings while striking out eight. But he experienced irregular soreness during the days that followed, and he was unable to throw a bullpen on Thursday.
“Definitely disappointing. Feeling for Nestor,” Aaron Boone said before the Yankees’ series-opener against the Marlins. “He put himself in a really good spot to get back and was throwing the ball so well. And, obviously, had a great first start coming back off the IL, but just didn’t recover properly.”
Similar soreness led to Cortes’ last stint on the IL. While he called this injury “the same thing as last time,” Cortes is feeling the soreness in a different spot now.
“It was a little bit more pronounced than the first time,” the pitcher added.
Cortes doesn’t believe he rushed back too quickly, and he’s not sure why his shoulder has been such an issue this season. Cortes has battled other injuries over the last two years, and he threw a career-high 158.1 innings last year.
Cortes also noted that he felt a ton of adrenaline before his return against the Astros, during which he threw the fastest pitch of his career.
Now Cortes won’t throw for about a month. While he doesn’t expect to have surgery, that timeline could make it tough for him to return this season.
“There’s always that scare,” Cortes said. “But we’re gonna take it day-by-day, week-by-week.”
Boone, meanwhile, acknowledged that Cortes’ latest IL stint could “potentially” end his 2023 campaign after just 12 starts.
“It will probably be tough with that kind of timeline,” the manager said of Cortes returning this year. “I know they’re gonna reevaluate, I think in three weeks, so you’re talking three to four weeks of no-throw and then essentially starting over from there with catch play. So it’d be pretty difficult, but we’ll see where we are in a few weeks.”
CORRESPONDING MOVES
The Yankees recalled right-handed pitchers Jhony Brito and Randy Vasquez as the corresponding moves to Cortes and Nick Ramirez.
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