LOS ANGELES — Nestor Cortes is likely joining the Yankees’ walking wounded.
The left-hander is “probably” headed for the injured list with a shoulder issue, manager Aaron Boone said Sunday.
Cortes will undergo an MRI exam on Monday back in New York to determine the extent of his injury.?
“I’m not really concerned,” Cortes said Sunday after the Yankees’ 4-1 win over the Dodgers. “It’s just a lot of soreness. I haven’t been able to bounce back like I want to between starts. Hopefully everything comes back clean [Monday] in the MRI and we can just get ahead of it and get better.”?
Boone said he did not think the shoulder issue was “anything too major,” but that Cortes was likely headed for the IL regardless of what the MRI showed because he was going to have to miss “a start or maybe two.”
Cortes has pitched to a 5.16 ERA across 11 starts this season, coming off an All-Star campaign in 2022 in which he posted a 2.44 ERA in a career-high 158 ?/? innings.
Most of his issues have come late in his outings, particularly when he faces a lineup the third time through.?
But Cortes said the shoulder did not hurt while he was pitching, only while he tried to recover in the days between his last few starts.
“It’s been harder and harder in between starts,” Cortes said. “I finally said something [Saturday]. … Usually the day after [a start] is pretty rough, normal soreness. But in this case, the second and third day kind of felt the same. It didn’t really feel like I was recovering better.”
Cortes said he has not experienced anything like this in the past.
“I think it’s more of an inflammation, but we gotta see what it really is,” Cortes said. “Get in there and see what the images say. … Hopefully these images come back better than what we expect.”
Cortes would join fellow starters Carlos Rodon (forearm muscle strain, back discomfort) and Frankie Montas (shoulder surgery) on the IL after Luis Severino (strained lat) was also injured to start the season before coming back in May.
The Yankees will use Monday’s off day to bump up Clarke Schmidt to start on regular rest Tuesday against the White Sox, which would have been Cortes’ day to pitch.
The Yankees have listed their Wednesday starter as “TBD,” and while Boone said he had an idea of who could come up from Triple-A to make the start, he was not ready to announce it on Sunday.?
Jhony Brito and Randy Vasquez would both be fully rested to be called up from Scranton/Wilkes-Barre to start Wednesday, with Brito last pitching on Thursday and Vasquez on Friday.