Around the Empire: Yankees news - 4/11/23

NJ.com | Max Goodman: The Yankees’ outfield situation has played out different than most anticipated a couple of weeks into the year. Aaron Hicks did indeed make the roster, but he hasn’t found much playing time at all. Instead, Franchy Cordero has inserted himself into the lineup after signing with the team right before Opening Day and made the most of his opportunity so far. Isiah Kiner-Falefa has also made a couple of starts in center field and now the newly recalled Willie Calhoun has even gotten a start (and batted fifth!) more recently than Hicks. It’s hard to imagine the team having much faith in him at this point, raising the question of what they’re eventually going to do with his spot on the roster.

NY Post | Mark W. Sanchez: Nestor Cortes had a bit of controversy pop up early in his latest start. The left-hander is known for his antics with his delivery, but home plate umpire Bill Miller took exception to Cortes’ glove, which features a white ‘44’ laced onto the bottom, after the first inning. Cortes was annoyed by the exchange due to the fact that he’s used the glove for years without issue, but didn’t argue and darkened the number with a Sharpie in the dugout. The incident didn’t slow down Cortes, as he delivered 5.1 innings and didn’t allow any runs until he exited with runners on who later came around.

Sports Illustrated | Pat Ragazzo: Luis Severino took a promising step forward, throwing his first bullpen session since being sidelined with a right lat strain. Severino tossed 22 pitches and mixed in all of his breaking pitches, a good sign that he could potentially move straight ahead to facing live batters. That would be the likely final step before a rehab assignment could commence, putting him on a path to return by the end of the month or early in May.

MLB.com | Brian Murphy: Frequent visitors of the site are likely familiar with our resident historian Matt Ferenchick, who goes back into the annals of history to find entertaining or relevant snapshots of Yankees games from way back in the past to highlight. The people working on Retrosheet take that enthusiasm for cataloguing the history of the game to the next level — they’re a non-profit project aiming to record the play-by-play and box scores of every MLB game ever played (including the Negro Leagues). Their arduous task set the precedent that iconic sites for the modern game like Baseball Reference and FanGraphs were built off of, and their story is succinctly captured in this piece.