Around the Empire: Yankees news - 6/16/22

Yankees Magazine | Nathan Maciborski: You couldn’t write a better script than the season that Nestor Cortes is having. The lefty has taken over top billing in the game’s best rotation, and as baseball heads full into All-Star season, has a real case to start the All-Star Game at Dodger Stadium in July, a far cry from where he was just 12 months ago.

FanGraphs | Eric Longenhagen: It’s been a good season for Ken Waldichuk. The 24-year-old was recently promoted to Triple-A Scranton, where he’s posted a 1.69 ERA and is striking out more than 37 percent of the batters he’s faced. He also, now, finds himself among the top 50 prospects in the game, with FanGraphs releasing one of their periodic updates. As Dan Kelly said last week, the fact that Waldichuk has been this good and fans aren’t clamoring for him to join the MLB team is a true testament to the strength of the big league pitching staff right now.

NJ.com | Bob Klapisch: At what point do we begin the watch for a truly historic season? The Yankees entered play last night with a full nine-game lead in the AL East, a division that might send four different teams to the postseason by year’s end. While the club did just begin possibly their toughest stretch of the season, with Tampa, Toronto and Houston all lined up to face them, a lead like this is hard to erase completely with 100 games to go.

Newsday | Anthony Rieber: A bit of melancholy news to close us out, as YES/ESPN booth god David Cone revealed he requires hip surgery and will go under the knife over the All Star break. It seems to be a fairly routine procedure, but he’ll need a couple weeks off to recover, and we all hope that recovery is smooth and swift. We’ll miss you, Coney.