Around the Empire: Yankees news - 5/16/22

San Francisco Chronicle | John Shea: It’s not often that we draw on a story that has absolutely nothing to do with the Yankees for the daily news links — it’s even rarer that it’s the lead story. But when it’s a story that sheds light on the baseballs, one of the most commonly-discussed issues of the young 2022 season ... well, that’s worth a read.

Prior to this season, Major League Baseball mandated that every stadium would store baseballs for the game in a humidor at 70 degrees Fahrenheit and 57 percent humidity. Although this process was implemented in an attempt to ensure consistency in how the ball travels across the thirty ballparks, some have speculated that it has instead not only been a major contributing factor in the decline in offense, it has also made the baseballs more inconsistent, speculating that the temperature and moisture of the humidor may be warping the covering of the ball.

New York Post | Dan Martin: Between his high strikeout rating and slow start to the season, Yankee outfielder Joey Gallo has become a popular punching bag for fans. Over the last couple of weeks, however, the left-handed left fielder has begun to turn it around at the plate, tallying his first multi-RBI game of the season with a two-run home run in the ninth inning of yesterday’s game. After slashing .153/.254/.271 over the first 21 games of the season, Gallo had posted a .296/.424/.519 in the 10 games prior to the start of yesterday’s game.

MLB.com | Joey Pollizze: The Legend of Nestor continues to grow. With yet another dominant outing, this time an eight-inning gem against the Chicago White Sox, Nestor Cortes finally met the innings threshold to qualify for the MLB leaderboards. Nasty Nestor did not just settle into the middle of the pack, or even a Top-10 ranking, but catapulted to the top of the list: his 1.35 ERA currently leads the American League and ranks second in all of baseball. At this point, we’re running out of ways to describe his elite performance.

CBS Sports | Mike Axisa: Over the weekend, Angels outfielder Shohei Ohtani hit the 100th home run of his career, becoming just the third Japanese-born player to hit 100 home runs in Major League Baseball. Who were the other two? Former Yankees left fielder Hideki Matsui, who had 175 homers across 10 seasons (including seven in the Bronx), and former Yankees outfielder Ichiro Suzuki, who had 117 homers across 19 seasons (including 2.5 in the Bronx).