New York Yankees @ Minnesota Twins: Nestor Cortes vs. Chris Archer

After a back-and-forth first half of the game last night, the Yankees finally pulled away late to win, 10-4. For the first time in quite awhile, the New York starting pitcher faltered, but the relief corps was there to pick up Jameson Taillon. Lucas Luetge, Wandy Peralta, and Ron Marinaccio combined for five innings of shutout ball.

Nestor Cortes gets the nod for the Wednesday start in Minnesota, and he’ll be hoping to not need as much bullpen help. If you’ve even remotely been following the Yankees season, you know the ridiculously wonderful Nestor story. He currently leads the majors with a 1.50 ERA, and it’s no fluke. He’s fanned 68 batters in 60 innings with a 0.867 WHIP and 6.1-percent walk rate. Cortes is one of the toughest pitchers in the league to barrel up, and he sits in the league’s highest percentile in xERA, xBA, xSLG, and xwOBA. The dude is just great.

The Twins will send out a more legitimate starting pitcher than they used on Tuesday night, and it’s a man quite familiar to Yankees fans: Chris Archer. He will make his 20th career start against New York, but he’s no longer the dominant Ray capable of shutting them out over nine innings. Some of Archer’s surface-level numbers are OK, but none of his peripherals look very good. He did inexplicably shut the Dodgers out over four innings in his 2022 debut back on April 12th, but that was his last scoreless outing. If the Yankees struggle to score against him, then they should be bummed out.

The Yankees’ lineup is fairly standard tonight, though Kyle Higashioka will be catching Cortes instead of Jose Trevino. The rest roulette hits Joey Gallo, so the outfield will be Aaron Hicks, Aaron Judge, and Giancarlo Stanton from left-to-right with Josh Donaldson at DH and DJ LeMahieu at third.

How to watch

Location: Target Field — Minneapolis, MN

First pitch: 7:40 pm ET

TV broadcast: YES Network, Bally Sports North, Fox Sports 1

Radio broadcast: WFAN 660/101.9, WADO

Online stream: MLB.tv

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