Nestor Cortes backed by 3 homers as Yankees edge Nationals

Nestor Cortes pitched into the seventh inning to win his third straight start as the visiting New York Yankees beat the Washington Nationals 5-2 on Monday night.

Gleyber Torres, Austin Wells and Jazz Chisholm Jr. homered for the Yankees, who have won five of their last six games. Anthony Volpe and Alex Verdugo had three hits each, and DJ LeMahieu had two RBIs.

Aaron Judge singled in the ninth inning for career hit No. 1,000.

Cortes (8-10) went 6 2/3 innings and extended his scoreless innings streak to 20 1/3 scoreless innings before allowing a seventh-inning homer. He gave up four hits, walked two and struck out five and was aided immensely by the outfield play of Verdugo and Judge. Clay Holmes pitched the ninth for his 28th save.

Juan Yepez and Jacob Young homered for the Nationals, and 22-year-old Dylan Crews, the No. 3 prospect in all of baseball according to MLB Pipeline, went 0-for-3 with a walk in his Major League debut.

Washington starter Mitchell Parker (7-8) allowed two runs on five hits over four innings.

Torres led off the game with a home run.

With a runner on second in the second, Keibert Ruiz hit a deep fly to left, but Verdugo ran into the wall while making the catch.

In the fourth, Volpe led off with a double, went to third on a flyout and scored when LeMahieu flied out.

With James Wood on first and one out in the fourth, Andres Chaparro flied deep to center. Judge raced to the wall, reached over and robbed Chaparro of a homer. He then fired to the infield where Wood, who had rounded second, was doubled off first.

Wells made it 3-0 when he homered leading off the sixth. Volpe then singled and took second on an error by center fielder Young. Volpe stole third and scored on LaMahieu's second sacrifice fly.

The Nationals had a solid chance in the sixth. Ildemaro Vargas singled and Young doubled. Cortes struck out CJ Abrams and Crews. Wood followed with a walk, but Cortes fanned Chaparro to end the inning.

Yepez homered in the seventh to cut the deficit to 4-1, but Chisholm made it 5-1 in the eighth.

--Field Level Media