Yankees.com: Schmidt shines, Cortes closes as Yanks’ pitching plans take shape

From Bryan Hoch:

An increasingly crowded rotation will force the Yankees to make several tough decisions as they plan for the postseason, but with Clarke Schmidt joining the mix to contribute a strong outing, this may be a good problem to have.

For the second consecutive day, a Yankees starter returned from the injured list to toss scoreless ball. Schmidt followed Luis Gil’s sparkling outing by pitching into the fifth inning, combining with Nestor Cortes on a four-hitter in the Yankees’ 2-0 victory over the Cubs on Saturday afternoon at Wrigley Field.

“Early in the season, we had probably two or three months where we were the best rotation in baseball, numbers-wise,” Schmidt said. “I wouldn’t say that’s out of the realm now. We have a lot of talented guys on this staff and we have a lot of depth, which is really good.”

A right lat strain had kept Schmidt out of big league action since May 26, but manager Aaron Boone said the right-hander “had a little bit of everything going,” limiting the Cubs to four hits in a 75-pitch effort.

“I think he’s only going to get better and sharper,” said catcher Austin Wells. “It looked the same [as earlier in the season], if not better. Really, it comes down to execution and locations, and I think that’s going to tighten up as we get further along into the end of this month.”

I mean, come the fuck on, right? Games 1 and 2 in this series couldn’t have worked out better for the Yankees than if they tried, pitching-wise. Their two young stud pitchers returned from the IL and pitched…like young stud pitchers. Thus making the Yankee playoff rotation suddenly look SHARP with Cole, Gil and Schmidt as the first three starters, and Carlos Rodon as the #4 starter, and Nestor Cortes suddenly looking like an effective middle relief weapon in the playoffs (with his offbeat approach a good alternative to the more traditional styles of the other guys).

The offense is still playing like shit, though. I sort of AM waiting now on “Oh, yeah, Judge has been playing hurt for a while” announcement.

I wanted to get a featured image that spotlighted both Schmidt and Nestor, so I wanted to go with the bit where Nestor got the final out of the fifth, and Schmidt was banging the top of the dugout in celebration, but for some reason, none of the highlight packages had it. Instead, I decided to just go with a bit that amused me – Nestor stopping a line drive by having it hit off of his butt, and drop to the ground, where he was able to easily throw out the runner. Too funny. Hopefully he is able to sit down okay today.

With the Orioles losing to the Rays (including Jose Siri going over the fence to bring back what would have been a two-out, go-ahead three-run home by Gunnar Henderson in the middle innings. Henderson was SO PISSED OFF. Ryan Pepiot couldn’t believe his good fortune), the Yankees are bizarrely back in first place in the AL East.

However, Jameson Taillon DOMINATED the Yankees the last time he faced his former team, and it is WAY too much to expect Gerrit Cole to also blank the Cubs (who have been on an offensive hot streak heading into this series), so the Yankee stint in first likely won’t last too long. Still, it was nice to get back to first for a little bit.