Yankees starter Nestor Cortes’ funky pump-fake is illegal pitch: MLB
NY Post
Nestor Cortes believes he made baseball history Sunday when he might have invented the pitcher pump-fake.
But if he was the first to use the tactic, he also would be the last — or at least the last to get away with it.
Cortes was informed by MLB on Monday that his latest trick — in which he feigned a throw, waving his left arm at Cleveland’s Andres Gimenez before raising his knee and then continuing with an actual pitch — is not allowed.
Home-plate umpire Mark Carlson allowed the deception, and Gimenez fouled the pitch off. But Cortes has been warned that it would be ruled illegal (and thus a ball would be added to the count) in the future.
Cortes, who will make his fifth start of the season Saturday against the Rays in The Bronx, is a master of disrupting rhythm, frequently pausing his windup and using multiple knee-raises before delivering a pitch.
The pump-fake will have to be eliminated from his arsenal, though.
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