Nestor Cortes Emphatically States Yankees Were 'Better Team' in World Series Loss

The former Yankees starter believes that New York was the better team in October's World Series loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Former Yankees pitcher Nestor Cortes believes that New York had the better team in the World Series loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers last season. / Dave Kallmann / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

New Milwaukee Brewers pitcher Nestor Cortes is still reeling from his loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers in last season's World Series when the veteran was a member of the New York Yankees.

The Dodgers, who were the best team in baseball last season with a 98-64 record that they parlayed into a second world championship in the last five years, beat the Yankees in five games and looked like the better team to the naked eye.

But not to Cortes. Speaking with The Athletic at Brewers spring training this week, the former Yankee said that he and his teammates were the better side.

"We had done enough to win that game," Cortes said of a tough Game 1 loss that told the tale for the rest of the series. "They can talk whatever they want to talk, but we win Game 1—which we should have—we lost 2 and 3, we win Game 4 and we should have won Game 5. Then we go back to L.A. up 3 to 2.

“So people can say it slipped away from us, people can say we made a lot of mistakes, which we did. But at the end of the day, we were the better team. I see it that way, and I'm sure everybody in that clubhouse sees it that way. The reality [could have been] going back to L.A. leading 3-2. It didn't happen that way and they deserve all the credit in the world, they won the World Series. At that moment, they showed they were the better team."

That sounds like a lot of "could haves, should haves, and would haves."

The Yankees enter 2025 looking to get back to the Fall Classic and win their first World Series since 2009.

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