NEW YORK — Best suited for any team Decisive game 5 pause Monday of the American League Division Series and move it to Tuesday at 4pm ET?
Jameson Taillon, who lost Game 2 in extra innings last Friday in his first career relief appearance, was scheduled to start Monday for New York. But now Nestor Cortez Jr. goes. The Cuban left-hander started that game on Friday, allowing six hits and two runs in 5.0 innings.
Cortez will return on three days’ rest. In 2019, he’s done it as a major leaguer for the second time with the Yankees. During that time he was fined for six hits and four runs (two earned) in 2 1/3 innings, but that was before he earned the nickname “Nasty Nestor.”
An even more significant advantage for the Bronx Bombers is a new bullpen. Relievers Clay Holmes and Vandy Peralta pitched Sunday in Game 4 of New York’s series win over the Guardians. Clearly, Holmes, Peralta and Nicaraguan Jonathan Loisica have been manager Aaron Boone’s most reliable relievers, combining for just two runs in 10 1/3 innings in the series.
Specifically, Peralta threw a total of 49 pitches in each of the last three games of the series spanning Friday and Sunday. Now he will have at least one day off, unlike on Monday, he will hardly see the pitch.
And in an extreme event—not highly likely, but not impossible—Boone could get an important win using Gerrit Cole, who has been brilliant in these playoffs (13.1 innings, three runs allowed, 16 strikeouts and two hits). An out or two if necessary after Sunday’s brilliant start to the right-hander.
“He already told me,” Boone said of the conversation with Cole on Monday. And on Tuesday, even more so.
As for the defenders, they entered Monday already well-rested with relievers Trevor Stephan, James Karinchak and Emmanuel Glass, so this extra day leaves New York’s bullpen a little more out of Cleveland.
If the Guardians decide to go with Shane Bieber on three days off, Aaron Chivale-Oct. 5 who is a non-pitcher and hasn’t pitched a pitch in his career—they could find themselves in good shape. Try going nine innings with Bieber, Stephan, Karinchak and Glass. Of course, Chivale and other relievers can also help.
Bieber hasn’t started a game on less than four days rest, but Game 5 could be viewed as a “bullpen game” of sorts, with the Guardians ace as the “starter.”
After all, if there’s an advantage—and in baseball, the variables make it hard to declare one definitively—it belongs to the Yankees, who now have a more rested reliever who can move the chips with equal ease. Guardians.
The winner of Tuesday’s Game 5 will head straight to Houston to open the American League Championship Series against the Astros on Wednesday.
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