DJ LeMahieu’s best day yet powers Yankees to sweep over Phillies

PHILADELPHIA — Shortly before the New York Yankees swept the Phillies on Wednesday, a group of reporters huddled into an auxiliary room at Citizens Bank Park.

There, Yankees general manager Brian Cashman spoke via conference call for the first time since the trade deadline. He discussed the moves his team did and didn’t make, but also a few incumbent players. DJ LeMahieu, hitting .173/.264/.216 with four extra-base hits entering the day, was one of them.

“He has struggled. He’s fighting through it,” Cashman said, lamenting how the veteran’s most recent injury, a broken foot suffered in spring training, erased a lot of LeMahieu’s offseason work.

However, the general manager added, “It’s still in there.”

There had not been much evidence of that this season, at least not until later in the day on Wednesday. LeMahieu, relegated to a backup role but playing first and batting eighth, had a career-high six RBI in the Yankees’ 6-5 win.

Most of the damage came on a second-inning grand slam, the third of LeMahieu’s career. The 400-foot blast came against Cristopher Sánchez, who had previously allowed just three homers all year.

LeMahieu, who finished the game 2 for 4, also had a two-run double in the fourth.

Meanwhile, Nestor Cortes took the mound after surviving the trade deadline. His name had come up in rumors over the past few days, but he kept his focus on preparing for his scheduled start.

“I’m almost confident that the Yankees want me enough to stay here,” Cortes said earlier in the week, adding that he wanted to stay put. “I know it’s just sometimes they need to improve in other areas. Other than that, I’m just playing it day by day, hour by hour and minute by minute.”

On Wednesday, Cortes allowed three earned runs over 5 1/3 innings, a solid effort after three consecutive poor performances that didn’t last five frames. Cortes, happy to still be a Yankee, also totaled three hits, two walks and six strikeouts over 99 pitches.

“I heard him kind of make some lighthearted comments from here to here,” Aaron Boone said of Cortes’ reaction to rumors.“I didn’t have any conversations like that around it. I didn’t feel like it was at a point to where I needed to do that.”

Cortes now has a 4.16 ERA in 23 starts this season.

One of Philadelphia’s runs came on an Alec Bohm groundout in the fourth. Nick Castellanos knocked an RBI single shortly thereafter.

A Weston Wilson homer gave the Phillies one more run off Cortes in the fifth. A Castellanos grounder then scored another run with Luke Weaver pitching in the sixth. The Phillies slugger then shot a fieldable RBI single past Gleyber Torres in the eighth.

The Phillies were baseball’s best team when this series began, but the Yankees left Citizens Bank Park with a sweep and a five-game winning streak. They are now 65-45.

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