Yankees pitcher Cortes_1210 is the rare underdog on a team that prides itself on its alpha status. RossBarkan reports
Photo: Meron Menghistab On a muggy afternoon at the ragged end of July, Nestor Cortés Jr., the mustachioed, heavily tattooed left-hander for the New York Yankees, was pouncing off the mound to field ground balls and fire them to first base. The night before, the Yankees had won on a walk-off home run from Aaron Judge, their six-foot-seven, 282-pound juggernaut and the front-runner for the American League’s Most Valuable Player Award.
Cortés is so far outpitching Cole and almost everyone else. By mid-August, he boasted a lower earned-run average and a higher bWAR, an advanced stat that measures overall pitching value, than Cole. He has won nine games and lost four. Despite not being a classic power pitcher, he has struck out more than a batter an inning and walked very few. In July, he made his first trip to the All-Star Game, donning a customized glove and strutting the red carpet in Los Angeles.
And it all starts with Cortés, the rare underdog on a team that prides itself on its alpha status. His father was once jailed in Cuba for trying to defect and eventually won a visa lottery to escape to Florida. Cortés, who was born in Cuba, was raised in Hialeah, a city in Miami-Dade County with the highest percentage of Cubans in the U.S. He grew up a rabid fan of the beleaguered local baseball team, the Marlins.
The lifestyle difference between the minors and the majors is enormous. Cortés currently earns more than $700,000 a year, a paltry sum next to Judge or Cole but plenty to a working-class kid. His father still insists on keeping his job as a forklift driver, even after his son’s salary bump. “I’ve told him, ‘Hey, maybe you should do less hours,’ ” Cortés said.
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