Nestor Cortes Left to Digest Loss After Aaron Boone’s Questionable Game 1 Move

The Yankees pitcher was called upon by his manager with Game 1 of the World Series on the line despite not having pitched since Sept. 18. The result is a crushing defeat.

Cortes made just his second relief appearance of the season on Friday. / John Froschauer-Imagn Images

Fame breathes the same air as its evil twin, Infamy. The natural laws of baseball require their co-existence.

There is no Tommy Henrich without Mickey Owen. No Don Larsen without Dale Mitchell. No Kirk Gibson without Dennis Eckersley. And now, tethered to posterity by one pitch, no Freddie Freeman without Nestor Cortes.

Thirty-six years and 10 nights after Eckersley had to relive via question after question the sudden horror of one pitch to Gibson, Cortes, the undersized New York Yankees lefthanded pitcher, stood there in the visiting clubhouse of the same ballpark undergoing the same excruciating, exacting autopsy of a forever defeat. Every question was the turn of a scalpel. It may have been bloodless, but it was not painless.

Two World Series Game 1s. Two walkoff home runs into the right field pavilion at Dodger Stadium. Two hobbled lefthanded Los Angeles Dodgers hitters.

Too much.

As in too much of an ask for Cortes. Yankees manager Aaron Boone, in a decision set in motion days earlier by he and his staff, wanted Cortes rather than Tim Hill to pitch to Shohei Ohtani and Freeman with Game 1 of the World Series on the line—even though Cortes had not pitched in 37 days. Freeman blasted a first-pitch fastball from Cortes for the first walk-off grand slam in World Series history and a 6–3 Dodgers victory Friday in 10 of the most pulsating, star-studded innings October is capable of crafting.

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Cortes immediately headed off the mound as soon as the ball landed. Asked if he felt shock, anger or some other emotion, Cortes said, “I mean, a little bit of everything. To be honest, I was more angry about the pitch I didn’t make. I think if I make my pitch there, obviously it's a different result.

“So, I didn't stay on the field long enough to, you know, think about it or see him run the bases. I just walked in and, uh, kind of turned the page right there and then and got my workout in and ready for tomorrow again.”

The hand of Infamy tapped Cortes only when the one from Boone did. Boone had Cortes and Hill warming as the bottom of the 10th inning began with Jake Cousins on the mound and the Yankees three outs away from a 3–2 win. The Dodgers had their 7-8-9 hitters due. Ohtani stood four spots away, meaning if any runner reached base Boone would be faced with the biggest decision of his managerial life.

Cousins made the worst possible mistake to set Infamy loose: two outs from the win, he walked Lux, who was 0-for-15 and without a hit for 16 days. When the task called for avoiding Ohtani, Cousins gave Los Angeles a free baserunner to bring the very danger into play.

The ultimate story of Game 1 is that the three MVPs at the top of the Dodgers lineup is a Navy SEALS training course for a pitcher. Ohtani, Mookie Betts and Freeman pressure pitchers constantly.

“There is not a lot of room for error, obviously,” said Yankees starting pitcher Gerrit Cole, who exhausted himself retiring the MVThree in the sixth inning, stranding the tying run at second. “No, there's not a lot of room for error. And it's probably going to be back and forth as we continue to keep going. It’s extremely tough to keep him off the board. It's extremely tough to get deep into a game. They have a great team. All you can do is just give yourself a chance.”

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But there is also a hidden story from Game 1: the Yankees often execute so poorly not even their home run power can Wite-Out their mistakes.

Right fielder Juan Soto took a poor angle on a ball hit by Kiké Hernández, playing a single or double into a triple. The extra 90 feet led to a sacrifice fly. Second baseman Gleyber Torres, with no play in order at second base, did not move his feet to catch either a long hop or the ball in the air on a throw from Soto. His lazy backhand stab that did not secure the ball allowed Ohtani an extra 90 feet, which led to another sac fly. The Cousins walk to Lux completed this triptych of inartistic play.

Tommy Edman followed the Lux walk with a groundball that second baseman Oswaldo Cabrera could not corral. Lux should have been on third, but he nearly face-planted rounding second and had to scamper back to second. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts should have run Chris Taylor for Lux at first base and finally got around to that move.

Now it was Ohtani’s turn. In any scientific process there occur junctures where a choice needs to be made based on current available information. On a process flow chart, they often are represented as diamonds. Different paths follow based on the choice. These are called “decision points.” Ohtani is a human decision point.

Ohtani forces a manager before the game is played to have a path through him to victory. In the days leading up to Game 1, Boone decided he wanted Cortes on Ohtani rather than Hill, even though Hill since Aug. 21 had permitted only four hits in 36 at-bats against lefthanded hitters, a .111 average for two months of regular relief work. Hill does not have swing-and-miss stuff. The Yankees were frightful that the movement of his best pitch, a groundball-inducing sinker, worked too much toward Ohtani and the plane of his swing.

Cortes had not pitched in 37 days because of such a troublesome forearm sprain that some family members cautioned him about pitching at all, lest it might risk his earning potential. But they liked his moxie and inventiveness on the mound. They figured he could create some deception, similar to how Seam Manaea of the Mets confused Ohtani with different arm angles. They preferred Cortes with rust over the sinker of Hill.

It seemed odd that Boone had both Cortes and Hill throwing in the 10th. But it spoke to the uncertainty about what the Yankees had in a rusty Cortes.

“I just wanted to make sure that Nestor warmed up well,” Boone explained, “and then if there was a two-out situation, I wanted to at least have the consideration to use Timmy there.”

After the Edman single, Boone walked to the mound. Cortes wasn’t sure who would come in.

“[Since] the fourth inning to be honest, every time the lineup came wrapping around, I was active, I was getting ready, I was getting warm just in case my name was called upon,” he said. “That last inning, it was right before Cousins went out they got me and Hill up. So, I thought there was a possibility and I got hot and ready as best as I could.”

Boone signaled to the pen with his left hand. By dropping his left hand lower than normal, that’s how Cortes knew it was the signal for him.

Cortes threw a first-pitch, 92 mph over the plate to Ohtani, but got away with it when Verdugo made a sprawling catch that sent him tumbling into the stands. Because he left the field of play, both runners were awarded an extra base. That became meaningful because with first base open Boone intentionally walked Betts to have Cortes pitch to Freeman.

Cortes had been throwing in the high 80s with his fastball during live batting practice sessions before the World Series. He took the 92 mph reading on the pitch to Ohtani as a sign that adrenaline was kicking in.

The plan for Freeman, one of the most notorious first-ball fastball hitters in all of baseball, was the same: attack with a fastball. Unbeknownst to Cortes, Freeman was sitting on a fastball, middle in.

“I maybe [wanted it] just two or three inches up higher,” Cortes. “I thought it got into the inside part of the plate where I wanted to, but it didn't get up enough.

“I wish I could've thrown it a little higher. He put a good swing on it and I knew he was going to be aggressive. Like I said, I wanted it to be higher. I just didn't get it to the spot. Right off the hand it looked okay, but I just didn't get it high enough.”

The pitch was 92.5 mph, inside, and more low than it was up. Like the slider Eckersley threw to Gibson, the location made it the only pitch that Freeman could catch out front with pull-side power, given how limited he has been in the playoffs with a sprained right ankle.

Freeman crushed it. A no-doubter. The clock said 8:35 p.m., just four minutes before the stroke of Gibson’s famous homer at 8:39 p.m. Both nights the temperature was between 63 and 64 degrees. Both home runs turned defeat into victory.

Freeman had not hit a ball 109 mph in 19 days. But the four off days between the NLCS and Game 1 proved a blessing. The ankle had been worsening whenever Freeman ran. So, he refrained from running for four days. When he ran from the dugout for pregame introductions, he pleasantly discovered no residual effects. He was back.

The visiting clubhouse at Dodger Stadium was renovated several years ago. The room where Eckersley spoke was converted into a staff analytics room, which was converted again for the World Series into an interview room. The room where Cortes spoke is one of the smallest visiting clubhouses in baseball. Like Eckersley, Cortes answered every question patiently, though, also like Eck, the raw pain in his voice was evident despite such patience.

“If I wasn't ready enough and I wasn't healthy enough I would have not done it and they would have not allowed me to,” Cortes said. “So, I think we're in a good spot. And like I said, I’ve got another opportunity. I want four games in this series. You know, the way it went down, obviously it was right there in our fingertips, but we're going to come back tomorrow strong.”

The pain was too new. He had come in from the field, took one look at a replay—shaking his head that the pitch wasn’t as high as he wanted—and tried to flush the hurt with a usual post-outing workout, though he had thrown only two pitches. It takes longer to process.

There is another fallout to deal with: what to do with Ohtani, the human decision point. Boone had calculated the moxie of Cortes was his best chance of getting Ohtani, but the Freeman home run must cause Boone a recalculation. Tommy Kahnle? Ohtani blasted one of his predictable changeups nearly out of the park for a double. Luke Weaver? Sure, but there are decision points before the closer. Cortes again? Hill? Tim Mayza? The intentional walk?

To win this series the Yankees are going to have to get through Ohtani, Betts and Freeman in key spots. It begins with matching up against Ohtani. That decision tree is fraught with frail limbs. Every time the Los Angeles lineup turns over to the top, Fame and Infamy are standing by, breathing the same thick, dramatic air.