Shohei Ohtani is nearly impossible to stop right now.
He’s leading the majors in home runs with 28 after hitting two huge dingers on Tuesday night, giving him 13 in June.
The only man who could stop him was … Nestor Cortes Jr.
I’m serious. The New York Yankees reliever actually did an amazing job on Tuesday night getting Ohtani to hit a long fly ball for an out, but he had to resort to some tricks in order to do it.
Cortes — known for changing up his arm slot — got him swinging and missing with a three-quarter arm slot pitch. He followed up by delaying his next pitch as he went into his windup, which was interrupted by the home plate ump. With Ohtani laughing, Cortes quick-pitched him for a ball.
Then? A side-armer for the pop-up. Amazing.
Nestor Cortes tries literally anything to get Shohei Ohtani out pic.twitter.com/oDfGKZy2e0
— Big Game Bengal (@BengalYouTube) June 30, 2021
Seriously, this is totally his thing. Check out what he did to Bryce Harper last week, which is probably what he was attempting Tuesday before the ump stopped play:
Nestor Cortes Jr. vs Bryce Harper
80 mph strike looking
79 mph strike looking
80 mph confusion tactic
94 mph strike looking pic.twitter.com/hCbpnwt4aW— Jomboy (@Jomboy_) June 12, 2021
Cortes has a 1.02 ERA, so maybe he knows what he’s doing.
