Friday, March 22, 2024

Let's hope Nasty Nestor is saving his best stuff for Opening Day (and would Ohtani bet on it?)

Ever since his 2019 arrival, Nasty Nestor Cortes - introduced last winter at a Trump rally as "the Hialeah Kid"- has been New York's most physically entertaining pitcher. (Unless you hate the Yankees, in which case it was Aroldys "Niagara Falls" Chapman.; every El Chapo outing was a Shakespearian tragedy.) 

In his personal mound ballet, Cortes glided between Fernando Valenzuela and Chris Farley, He brought forth multiple windups. He'd dive headfirst into 1B to beat a runner. He emerged from the scrap heap at age 26, pitched a scoreless frame in the 2022 All-Star game, fanning Austin Riley and Garrett Cooper. He came out of nowhere, a looming Yankee legend.

Then came the setbacks, the tweaks and strains that limited him to 63 innings last season and a rather dismal 4.97 ERA. Nevertheless, the front office in December named him as their No. 3 starter, signaling plans to ignore the pricier free agents. Everything was groovy, and then Gerrit Cole's elbow spoke up.  

In yesterday's box score, Nestor gave us little to cheer. Four innings, three earned runs, the game effectively over in the fifth. But on the field, it wasn't so bad. He threw three quick scoreless innings, then, in the 4th, walked the leadoff man - Austin Riley again. An infield single followed, then an RBI single. Nestor was fraying. In the fifth, he had zilch: A leadoff HR, followed by a triple and a single. Boonie pulled the cord. 

You could argue that Nestor had a decent day - done in by fatigue, normal for late March. (That was the cheery consensus of YES.) That said, the Yankees this year will need six innings from starters. Anything less, and the bullpen will be crispy critters by June, when Cole hopefully returns. That means a 5th starter - Luis Gil, Will Warren or Clayton Beeter - must emerge from nowhere, as Nestor did. Will we get lucky again? 

Of course, we can gloat over the fate of Yoshi Yamamoto, who spurned our advances last winter for mellow LA. In Tuesday's MLB opener, he was crushed by San Diego (and 3B Tyler Wade!) His horror show outing - one inning, five runs, boos - was soon overshadowed by the potential scandal of Shohei Ohtani's tagalong, an apparent gambling junkie. (How else do you lose $4.5 million?) 

With pure IT IS HIGH fuckery, let's toast the Dodgers' quandary! Couldn't happen to a nicer billionaire. Still, I wonder how any sports league today can righteously mount a crackdown on gambling? Have you, um, looked around? Every televised sports event includes a nonstop buffet of odds and parlays. Once upon a time, gambling was baseball's boogie man. Now, it's Santa Claus. 

Sports betting is the golden calf behind Ohtani's $700 million contract. As long as his butt boy wasn't betting on baseball games, is there anything wrong - compared to this ethical shit show, which we now take for granted? 

Dunno what's coming, but some big shoes could still drop. The U.S. Justice Department surely would love an issue that unifies Americans and cannot be politicized. Enter sports gambling. Something tells me it's gonna get hotter. Just sayin'. 

6 comments:

  1. Nestor came from nowhere, had his year, and is now on the painful, slow trip back to whence he came. Sad but true.

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  2. I was always lead to believe that Billionaires had people to do their nose picking for them. That’s snot what we saw yesterday….

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  3. I’m not holding out too much hope for Cortes. He never carried a heavy workload until 2022, and then broke down the next year. Wondering if the team shouldn’t try a 6 man rotation, if they can ever find 6 starters. I’m sure the pantywaists in analytics would love it.

    I never gamble (It’s my only virtue) I’d like to see a breakdown of how much revenue teams actually receive from legalized betting, and how they receive it, I tried researching online and the results were murky at best. Can anyone enlighten me?

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  4. "...the painful, slow trip back to whence he came..." That's Palookaville JM. That's where we're all headed.

    Not that I give a holy flying fuck but if it turns out Shoeless Sho was the one with the gambling debt, and since we'll probably never know what actually happened the door to irresponsible speculation is wide open, can someone tell me why he wouldn't place bets legally as is the god-given right of every swill-swillin Murican all across these fruited plains rather than betting with a bookie who runs the risk of being under, perhaps, a Federal investigation? I know sport betting is not legal (yet) in California but you would think the Korean Babe Ruth could afford to have someone drive him to Nevada. And horseshit to the money being stolen from him - that's a horseshit story unless you think he keeps his money in a cigar box under the bed, which if he does he better check to make sure his weed's not gone too.

    Whatever. Who cares? I guess kudos to the butt buddy for falling on the grenade no matter how ungracefully.

    And of course the obligatory fuck Cashman.

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