{"id":171424,"date":"2025-08-24T10:00:23","date_gmt":"2025-08-24T10:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/171424\/"},"modified":"2025-08-24T10:00:23","modified_gmt":"2025-08-24T10:00:23","slug":"nestor-cortes-dominates-dodgers-pitches-padres-into-1st-place-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/171424\/","title":{"rendered":"Nestor Cortes dominates Dodgers, pitches Padres into 1st place"},"content":{"rendered":"

SAN DIEGO —Nestor Cortes<\/a> had one of the lowest moments of his baseball life in October when he gave up the first walk-off grand slam in World Series history to theLos Angeles Dodgers<\/a>‘Freddie Freeman<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In a new uniform and a new pennant race Saturday night, Cortes faced his Dodgersdemons head-on — and he came out smiling.<\/p>\n

The veteran left-hander produced six brilliant innings of one-hit ball while his San Diego Padres<\/a> surged past Los Angeles into sole possession of first place in the National League West with a 5-1 victory<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Cortes took a perfect game into the sixth inning, flummoxing the Dodgers’ high-priced lineup and combining with three relievers on a two-hitter. But Cortes didn’t see this stellar performance as redemption for his role in Freeman’s now-iconic slam at Chavez Ravine and the Dodgers’ ensuing five-game victory over his New York Yankees<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“Obviously, there’s a history,” Cortes said. “Everybody knows about it. It sucks as a player to go through those moments, but the good thing about baseball is that you always have another opportunity. Once the opportunity comes, you try and make the best out of it, and that’s what I did today.”<\/p>\n

With a sellout crowd at Petco Park cheering him on in just his fourth start for the Padres, Cortes coolly retired the Dodgers’ first 16 hitters. He struck out three and didn’t walk a batter while slicing through Los Angeles’ collection of MVPs and standout role players with a crafty mix of pitches — and nothing faster than 92.1 mph.<\/p>\n

“That was tremendous,” Padres manager Mike Shildt said of Cortes. “We’re getting to know him, and it just feels like once he gets in a rhythm, he’s really good. He got in a rhythm right from the very first batter, and he just carried it through. It was a fantastic effort through six.”<\/p>\n

The Dodgers couldn’t even get on base until Miguel Rojas<\/a> produced a one-out single in the sixth. Cortes calmly regrouped, retiring Shohei Ohtani<\/a> for the third time on a fly ball to end the inning and his night.<\/p>\n

The performance was even more impressive because Cortes is still getting to know his teammates and coaches with the Padres, who acquired him from theMilwaukee Brewers<\/a>at the July 31 trade deadline in a flurry of moves that have significantly improved an already strong roster.<\/p>\n

The Yankees traded Cortes to the Brewers last winter in a package for closer Devin Williams<\/a>, but Cortes made only two starts for Milwaukee before missing four months with an elbow injury.<\/p>\n

Cortes might not have had a role with MLB-best Milwaukee, but he has fit perfectly in a hole in the Padres’ rotation. He gave up four runs in the first inning on Monday against the visitingSan Francisco Giants<\/a>, but Cortes has allowed only three earned runs in his other 20 innings for San Diego.<\/p>\n

Cortes knows he has landed with a team that could give him a chance to write a new October history, and he’s eager to see how far the Padres can go.<\/p>\n

“These guys are resilient,” Cortes said. “They’re not at the top of the standings for no reason. Even long before I got here, watching them from the East Coast, it’s a team that battles, a team that goes out there and plays hard. Now, being part of them, you can tell how everybody is here together. It’s a camaraderie, and everybody is just trying to win.”br\/]<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2025 ESPN Internet Ventures. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN DIEGO —Nestor Cortes had one of the lowest moments of his baseball life in October when he…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":171425,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[97913,1582,276,97912,5723,2961,224,2502,5337,1266,50,1306],"class_list":{"0":"post-171424","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-97913","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-cortes-nestor","12":"tag-espn","13":"tag-la","14":"tag-los-angeles","15":"tag-los-angeles-dodgers","16":"tag-losangeles","17":"tag-mlb","18":"tag-news","19":"tag-san-diego-padres"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115083167864168809","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171424\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/171425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}