Yankees' Nestor Cortes aims to maintain dominance over O's

New York Yankees left-hander Nestor Cortes looks to continue his success against the host Baltimore Orioles when the teams play the middle game of a three-game series on Tuesday.

Cortes (1-2, 3.50 ERA) is 4-0 with a 1.99 ERA in nine games, seven starts, versus the Orioles. It is his best ERA against any team he has faced more than once.

This season, Cortes has gone seven or more innings in three of his six starts. Last time out, he pitched seven innings in a 3-1 loss to the Oakland A's on Thursday. Cortes allowed three runs on five hits, two of them third-inning home runs. He struck out four without issuing a walk.

Cortes took his first loss at Yankee Stadium since Aug. 16, 2022, after giving up a solo shot to Nick Allen and a two-run homer to Tyler Nevins.

"I thought we threw too many fastballs to Allen," Cortes said. "With Nevin, he looked very bad in his first at-bat with the fastball in. I threw him a cutter prior to that home run pitch. He didn't look very comfortable. If I go (inside) there, we would probably get a different result."

Right-hander Dean Kremer (1-2, 4.61 ERA) will make his sixth start of the season for Baltimore. Kremer earned his first win in his most recent outing, when he limited the Los Angeles Angels to two runs on three hits over 5 1/3 innings on Wednesday. He struck out 10 and walked one while throwing 101 pitches.

"Dean threw so well," Orioles manager Brandon Hyde said after the game. "He just threw a lot of pitches, unfortunately."

Kremer is 2-3 with a 5.04 ERA in nine lifetime starts vs. the Yankees.

Baltimore took the series opener 2-0 on Monday night. Gunnar Henderson hit his 10th homer of the season and scored twice, and Grayson Rodriguez pitched 5 2/3 scoreless innings.

Only two other Orioles have hit 10 homers before May 1: Brady Anderson in 1996 and Hall of Famer Frank Robinson in 1969. Baltimore leads the majors with 45 home runs.

Three Orioles relievers finished the shutout. With closer Craig Kimbrel (day-to-day due to back tightness) unavailable, Danny Coulombe got the final three outs with an inherited runner on base for his first save of the season and third of his career.

"It was definitely a new territory for me," Coulombe said. "It's fun. Anytime you get to pitch in a leverage situation, that's why you play this game. When Kimbrel's down, it's going to be a team effort."

After scoring 15 runs in each of their previous two games, the Yankees were blanked. New York had at least one baserunner in every inning except the eighth but went 0-for-8 with runners in scoring position. Gleyber Torres had two hits.

New York wasted a 5 2/3-inning, one-run effort by starter Clarke Schmidt.

"We've had some of those nights where we've gotten shut down when we've had a lot of traffic and we just didn't come up with the big hit," said Yankees manager Aaron Boone, whose team was shut out for the fifth time this season. "One of those nights, frustrating because you put together some good at-bats but aren't able to break through."