For more than a century, the Yankees have been defined by their offense; Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle and the rest. Even this season, they’re led by one of the most impressive one-two punches in baseball history. Juan Soto and Aaron Judge combined to go just 1-for-8, a rarity and even more elusive to spot in a Yankees victory. Tonight’s 5-2 triumph over the Nationals was powered by a strong start from Nestor Cortes, and So a lot of defense.

Cortes didn’t quite put together his third straight seven-inning shutout start, giving the Yankees just 6.2 innings. His best effort actually came late in the game, after he allowed two Nationals to reach scoring position to start the sixth inning. The score was only 4-0, one big hit changing the winning outlook in a major way.

Against a talented top four in the Nats order — indeed, a quartet that could very well form the core of the next great Washington lineup — Cortes struck out C.J. Abrams with a fastball that the youngster couldn’t catch, then grounded the debuting Dylan Crews for the second time in the game. James Wood, the lone left-hander in the quartet, drew a walk to load the bases with two outs, bringing up former Yankee farmhand Andrés Chaparro:

Nestor did give up a solo shot in the seventh inning, but you’ll take his last line every time. Of course, as we said, the Yankees stole a few outs for him in the field:

Alex Verdugo appeared to have been shaken, particularly in his right leg, after catching the ball against the wall. Trainers checked him out, but the left fielder stayed in the field and had two hits, so he must have been feeling pretty good.

Aaron Judge managed just one hit in his final AB of the game today (his 1,000th of his career), but when you’re the best in the game, it’s hard to avoid making some sort of impact!

The double play catch-and-throw will be included in every highlight package commemorating his MVP season. As Michael Kay says, you don’t want to sound redundant when you talk about Judge, but that means you run out of things to say about him.

Now, Austin Wells is no Aaron Judge, but he had some magic on both sides of the ball tonight. Behind the dish, a really smart pickoff on second got the Yankees out of the fifth.

In the sixth inning, Wells hit his tenth home run of the season:

One of three dingers that night, Wells joined Gleyber Torres and Jazz Chisholm Jr. in reaching the seats — Torres’ long ball led the game, giving the Yankees a lead before most fans had found their seats, and a lead they wouldn’t look back on. Chisholm continued his pre-injury hitting streak since arriving at the trade deadline and made up for the Yankees’ only defensive blemish that day.

Perhaps the only downside was the home run Mark Leiter Jr. gave up in relief of Cortes. He now has an ERA and FIP over 6.00 with the Yankees, and his strikeout rate is down seven points since he was acquired. He was brought in by many means to be a safety blanket if Clay Holmes couldn’t remain reliable, but he hasn’t been able to do that. Holmes did work a quick, clean ninth inning today — though that last out made me cringe — but if that’s the setup*/closer combination going into the final stretch of the season … loyal readers know how I feel.

*To be fair, we should note that regular setup man Luke Weaver was likely resting after pitching three times in four days.

Still, those are uptown problems in another Yankee victory that felt like it was in control from the first pitch. Baltimore was off tonight, so New York took a half-game to jump out to a full two-game lead and can secure another series win behind Gerrit Bleepin’ Cole tomorrow. That one comes one more time at 6:45 Eastern.

Box score