 This is what's ahead for the Yankees first to three against Baltimore on Friday Friday back in the Bronx It'll be a battle at lefties Nestor Cortez going for the Yankees against John Means who despite his record Five and six was a really good ERA three and a half in the American League is nothing to sneeze at for Nestor Cortez And even better ERA Jack coming off a loss, but he only gave up three runs to the A's So he has still been very steady. He's been reliable for the Yankees He's been a lifesaver actually if you look at the Yankees starters this season Severino and Hermann are still trying to work their way back Schmidt trying to work his way back Hermann has struggled. I'm sorry David Garcia has struggled at the AAA level Who would have picked Cortez at the start of the season to make so many starts for the Yankees and to be such a Steadying influence in the rotation He goes out there with different arm angles different variety of pitches and the word that David Cone uses to describe him as The word I'm going to steal he's fearless. He's added some velocity to his fastball He absolutely believes that he belongs at the Major League level. He needs to perform well on Friday, but so do the Yankees There's no fooling around. They can't say this publicly, but it's easy for us to say it They've got to sweep the Orioles. They're eight and five against them this year The Orioles are a team that is going nowhere more than 40 games out of first place You look at the difference between the Yankees and the Rays one area that you can point is the way they've performed against the Orioles the Rays already finished with them this year They were 18 and one and by the way if you're looking at that scoreboard now And some of the players are starting to do that as we've turned the page to September you see that you won You also see the Rays lost They were about to win their tenth game tonight and they did their tenth and a row and they didn't so suddenly at least for a Night you're saying okay, they're human they can lose now Let's see what happens the rest of the way the baseball season is very long But things can change very quickly the Yankees lost four games in four days Because they lost four and the Rays won four so that could turn around very quickly quickly take advantage of These soft spots in your schedule and this is one that is looming against the Orioles the Yankees didn't do that in Anaheim They're fortunate that Cole pitched so well tonight and they were able to salvage the final game of the series But those first two games against the Angels they let opportunities slip away can't do that at home Can't do that against the lowly Orioles