NEW YORK — Upon arriving at Yankee Stadium for Opening Day, Nestor Cortes Jr. wasn’t sure where to go. Maybe, considering his historically dreadful performance on Saturday in his Brewers debut, he should have stayed lost.
Facing his old club, Cortes surrendered back-to-back-to-back home runs on the first three pitches he threw in the bottom of the first inning. It was the first time in MLB history that a team went deep on three consecutive pitches to begin a game. Cortes allowed two more long balls before he was removed with no outs in the third.
In all, the Yankees hit nine home runs during a 20-9 bludgeoning of the Milwaukee Brewers, breaking their franchise record for homers in a game. Aaron Judge, who went deep in his first three at-bats, missed becoming the 19th player in MLB history with a four-homer game by about 2 feet when he doubled off the wall in the sixth.
It was a momentous drubbing, a thorough dismembering, a home run derby disguised as a ballgame. And for Cortes, the afternoon was an embarrassing homecoming of epic proportions.
The former Yankee, dealt to Milwaukee in December, entered this Bronx ballyard no fewer than 300 times during his four-year stretch in pinstripes. Over that eventful tenure, Cortes went from anonymous fill-in reliever to cult-hero All-Star starter to postseason scapegoat. Undersized, with a slight paunch and a magic fastball, the crafty Cuban endeared himself to both clubhouse and fan base.
But as the Brewers filed off the team bus Thursday morning, Cortes realized he was turned around; he hadn’t entered Yankee Stadium as a visitor since 2018. With his new club serendipitously beginning its 2025 season in the Bronx, this very familiar setting, suddenly inverted, proved perplexing.
“I didn't know whether to turn right or left in the tunnel,” Cortes admitted to Yahoo Sports on Thursday, his short buzz cut dyed a striking hue of metallic silver.
If Cortes was disoriented on Thursday, the repeated exercise of contorting his neck to watch home runs zoom over his head on Saturday must’ve left him discombobulated beyond belief. The experience was so disheartening, in fact, that the pitcher left the stadium without addressing the media, a notable, frowned upon breach of postgame protocol.
When Cortes allowed Freddie Freeman’s now famous walk-off grand slam in Game 1 of last year’s World Series, the ...
