SEATTLE — On a night the Yankees punched their ticket to the playoffs, Nestor Cortes continued to make his case for being part of their playoff rotation.
The left-hander threw six shutout innings against the Mariners en route to a 2-1 victory in 10 innings Wednesday night at T-Mobile Park.
“I’m just trying to do my part here and compete with the guys that are the best in the league,” Cortes said amid a raucous champagne and beer celebration inside the visitors’ locker room.
Cortes has now pitched to a 1.58 ERA over his last six outings, including a long relief appearance as the Yankees moved him into the bullpen one turn into the rotation.
While Cortes has experience as a reliever and could help the Yankees in October, he’s also started playoff games before and has shown he’s not intimidated by the big stage.
“Nestor did a fantastic job for us this year,” Gerrit Cole said. “He took the ball every time, no matter what role we gave him. He shot it well and gave us a chance to win almost every time he stepped on the field.”
Marcus Stroman is currently the odd man out in the bullpen at this point in the rotation, but the Yankees will need to shed one or two more starters once they reach the playoffs.
Wednesday’s outing was Cortes’ fourth scoreless appearance in his last seven games.
He held the Mariners to four hits (including a double by Justin Turner that Jasson Dominguez should have caught in center field) and three walks while striking out six batters.
“I feel like he’s throwing the ball really well,” manager Aaron Boone said. “I feel like Nestor has had a really good year.”
For the first time this season — other than missing five weeks with a hamstring strain — Giancarlo Stanton was out of the lineup Wednesday for a second straight game.
Stanton said he was fine physically, but he was benched for a second straight day while Aaron Judge received another day of DH duty to help him stay fresh until the end.
“We’re not going to make this a story about how I feel. [about not playing]”We’ll do well either way,” Stanton said before the game.
Stanton said his absence from Tuesday’s lineup was due to a matchup against tough right-hander Bryan Woo.
So he wasn’t going to play Wednesday and Thursday (Thursday being a day game after a night game), and the Yankees decided that Thursday (against right-hander Logan Gilbert) was a better day for him to be in the lineup.
The consecutive days off may have more to do with Boone’s desire to get Judge back on track at this point in the season after playing regularly in a demanding center field.
“Judgey is good, but I certainly appreciate those days for him at this time of year, especially after a bad day. [Monday]” , Boone said. “Of course, even though we’ve relied on him and others, I want to be aware of that at this time of year.”
Boone said Stanton, who was 4 of 34 with two doubles over his last 10 games, would be back in the lineup consistently the rest of the way.
After Clay Holmes gave up a game-tying home run to Justin Turner in the eighth inning, Luke Weaver came in and struck out four in 1 ²/₃⅔ innings to send the game into extra time. … The Yankees had a season-high 15 strikeouts.
