BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Joyce Edwards and Toby Fournier lead their respective teams in scoring. As freshmen, that is a feat in itself. Normally, veterans carry their teams through the regular season and into the Big Dance.

However, you won’t hear Edwards’ and Fournier’s names when the South Carolina and Duke starting lineups are announced Sunday. 

In fact, the Gamecocks’ Edwards has only started one game this year.

Duke’s Fournier? Not one.

So many athletes yearn to be a starting player, especially for perennial powerhouses such as South Carolina and Duke. But for both of these high-scoring freshman forwards, just the chance to hit the court is enough.

“Whatever my team needs, it’s what I’m going to do,” said Fournier, who is averaging 13.1 points per game this season. “Everyone on our team is able to contribute in some sort of way, whether that’s coming off the bench or starting. It doesn’t really matter.”

Edwards’ only start this year was against NC State in November. She and South Carolina coach Dawn Staley do not discuss why she doesn’t start more often.

“We don’t have that conversation because it’s not something I’m necessarily interested in,” said Edwards, who leads the Gamecocks with 13 points per game. “You get the recognition and your name on the screen, but that’s really it.”

Thanks in large part to the efforts of Edwards and Fournier, South Carolina (41.5) and Duke (31.6) rank first and second in the NCAA in bench points per game. Especially as teams go deeper in March Madness, bench contributions become more critical.

“We understand how important it is,” said Edwards, a South Carolina native. “We understand how much we can contribute to the game, and it’s about trying to make that impact.”

Juniors and seniors on each team have taken notice of the countless hours of work Edwards, Fournier and other bench players put in. 

“Without our bench, we don’t win,” Duke junior Ashlon Jackson said. “They continue to bring a spark and stay ready every single game.”

The spark from the freshmen forward phenoms is evidence that this game is not every woman for herself – but everyone for each other.

“The fact that you have two leading scorers coming off the bench means that everyone’s willing to come up and play,” Fournier said. 

Abby Halpin is a student in the University of Georgia’s  Sports Media Certificate program.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: In women’s March Madness, South Carolina, Duke value freshmen scorers

SAN DIEGO (AP) — San Diego Padres third baseman Manny Machado left Saturday’s game against Atlanta with right calf tightness following an at-bat in the fourth inning.

Machado appeared to hurt himself while swinging at a pitch from Spencer Schwellenbach. He then fouled off a pitch and hobbled out of the batter’s box. He was checked by a trainer and finished the at-bat, flying out to right field.

He was replaced by Jose Iglesias in the top of the fifth.

___

AP MLB: https://apnews.com/MLB

The Minnesota Wild were able to dig themselves out of an early two-goal hole on Saturday, but they couldn’t overcome Nico Hischier’s three-goal night.

In a game with all of the bad blood normal for historical division rivals — an oddity for a team Minnesota sees just twice a year — the New Jersey Devils led early and never trailed, holding off the Wild in a 5-2 win.

Goals by Marcus Foligno and Ryan Hartman weren’t enough offense, as Minnesota lost for the third time in the past four games. Wild goalie Filip Gustavsson had 28 saves in the loss.

For New Jersey, which had been blanked in Winnipeg one night earlier, Hischier turned in his second hat trick of the season and goalie Jacob Markstrom had 22 saves, holding off several notable pushes by the Wild after the visitors established an early 2-0 lead.

Trailing 3-2 in the third, Minnesota had a late power play but could not find the equalizer. Then New Jersey got a power play and Hischier completed the hat trick, sending the Wild’s largest crowd of the season home disappointed.

The game’s opening 29 seconds featured odd-man rushes by both teams in both directions, and when the first whistle arrived, New Jersey led by a goal. Minnesota had gotten a 2-on-1 break off the opening faceoff but did not get a shot off. Then, with two Wild players caught in the offensive zone, the Devils stormed back the other way, with Gustavsson stopping a Jesper Bratt shot, but Hischier popped in the rebound.

Roughly five minutes later, the Devils doubled their lead on another odd-man rush when, again, Gustavsson made the initial save, only to have the rebound slip between his knees when fourth-liner Paul Cotter fired from low on the goal line.

But all was not lost in the first as the Wild got on the board late in the frame to cut the deficit in half. Jared Spurgeon’s shot from the high slot was deflected in front by Foligno, with the puck bouncing hard off the ice and fluttering over the goalie’s right shoulder. It was the 12th goal of the season for Foligno and his first since returning from a five-game absence due to injury.

Foligno was all over the score sheet on Saturday, taking an embellishment penalty that had the Wild bench offering choice words for the officials, and dropping the gloves for a second period tussle with Devils defenseman Johnathan Kovacevic after Foligno had hit another New Jersey blueliner into the end boards.

New Jersey maintained a 2-1 lead at the end of a scrappy second period, and were inches away from extending the advantage in the final seconds when Hischier’s shot toward a mostly open net glanced off the skate of his teammate, Timo Meier, and went wide of the crease.

Hischier finally got his second of the game and dampened the sellout crowd’s hopes of a comeback when his wrist shot from just inside the blue line glanced off Wild captain Jared Spurgeon’s shin pad and fluttered past Gustavsson’s glove, off the post and in. It was the fourth multi-goal game of the season for Hischier.

But the Wild again had an answer when Hartman poked a loose puck in the crease over the line after a Foligno deflection had hit the crossbar behind the Devils goalie. The Wild got a power play a short time later when former Gophers standout Erik Haula tripped up Yakov Trenin on a rush to the net, but Minnesota managed just one shot during the two minutes of man advantage.

Hischier and Tomas Tatar scored late for the Devils, who will be the home team when they face Minnesota again on Monday.

After playing 10 of their last 11 games at home, the Wild next embark on a three-game road trip to the New York City area, visiting the Devils first, then the New York Rangers on Wednesday and the New York Islanders on Friday before playing three of their last five regular season games at home.

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HOUSTON — It is a straightforward question, the one asked most by Mets fans at the beginning of this promising season: folks want to know if the starting rotation is good enough.

Or, more pointedly, they want to know why the Mets did not do more to build a name-brand rotation after investing so heavily in a top offense. Clay Holmes on Opening Day, they say. Griffin Canning in Game 3. Really?

It’s a fair question — and it’s not just the usual internet knuckle draggers asking. It’s legitimate baseball people, like the longtime major league scout who told me simply this week that “the Mets don’t have enough pitching.”

The Mets themselves disagree. Strongly. And they’re not stupid. So what gives?

On our SNY shows and in conversation, I’ve handled this question by saying that one has to assume that president of baseball operations David Stearns and his people know what they are doing. Stearns made his reputation running the Brewers as a guy who oversaw the acquisition and development of great pitching.

Those are my words, though, not Stearns’. On Saturday evening, standing in the Mets’ dugout in Houston, I asked the man himself how he would answer this oft-posited challenge to his offseason work.

Here’s how I worded the question: “Why is this rotation, which does not look like a championship-caliber rotation to the untrained eye, something that you guys feel good about?”

Worth asking, right?

What Stearns said:

“We think we have really talented pitchers,” he said. “And it’s the talented pitchers that are in our rotation right now. It’s the talented pitchers who are presently on the IL and it’s the talented pitchers who may be in the rotation later in the year.

“A lot of what we try to guard against over the course of the season is what you can’t predict, right? You can’t predict things like injuries. You can’t predict things like underperformance. You also can’t predict breakouts, and if you lock yourself in with no flexibility, you also don’t have the opportunity to take advantage of breakouts.

“The notion of a championship-caliber rotation, I think, is one that is worthy of discussion. I think if we look at the actual champions of baseball over the last however long you want to look at — decades, 15 years, 20 years, some of them might have the Hall of Famer at the front end of the rotation, and some of them have guys who signed one-year deals and were traded midseason and all of a sudden got on the heater in September and October, and a team rode them to a World Series championship. Teams can be built in a variety of different ways. And I think successful rotations can be built in a variety of different ways.

“The last thing I’ll say is like the long-term, successful rotation depends upon our ability to develop really quality starters, right? And that is what we are aiming to do. That is what the continuously successful teams at this level do, and really, that is where our focus is.”

I then asked Stearns if he thought of pitching more in terms of staff than rotation.

“I think certainly in the playoffs, you do, but in building your opening day staff, you do need — especially as MLB has cracked down on the number of pitchers and has cracked down on the roster movement we can do in season — you do need some length out of your rotation.

“I don’t think it needs to be seven innings every night, but you do need some length out of your rotation and or if not, you will go through your bullpen, you’ll pay the price at some point later in the year. So I don’t discount all the importance of starting pitching. In fact, I think starting pitching is really important.”

Some additional thoughts:

What I heard there were three basic elements:

1) Confidence in the pitchers who the Mets chose and the people who chose them — Canning, Holmes, Paul Blackburn etc.

2) A desire to develop aces from within, and maintain flexibility to allow for top pitching prospects to potentially contribute later this year.

3) A related desire to keep a lane open for trade acquisitions. I strongly expect the Mets to be in on Dylan Cease and Michael King, if the Padres make them available this summer, and any other rotation rentals. They are too well-resourced and ambitious to have a passive trade deadline.

Stearns has certainly earned credibility from his time with the Brewers, when the team developed starters Corbin Burnes, Freddy Peralta and Brandon Woodruff, along with a slew of top relievers. Now with the Mets, he is operating with new budget parameters and can not only oversee the ascent of homegrown pitchers, but sign them to contract extensions rather than lose them to free agency.

We can trust that when the Mets’ front office hones in on a Blackburn at the trade deadline or a Canning in free agency, they see an element that excites them. It might be a plus pitch that has just started to click. It might be a potential adjustment in their delivery that, if implemented correctly by ace pitching coach Jeremy Hefner, could unlock a level of dominance.

The Mets know they will not hit on every acquisition; the $34 million ticketed for Frankie Montas’ bank account is not looking great at the moment. But when the team chooses a pitcher who seems random to us, it is always because of a specific quality or qualities that make that pitcher stand out.

Finally: did you notice when Stearns seemed to gently challenge the premise baked into my question about a “championship-caliber rotation,” and posited that champions assume many different shapes and structures?

To his point, the mighty Dodgers operated last October with Jack Flaherty at the top of their rotation. Flaherty is a talented pitcher, but he was a trade deadline acquisition pitching on a one-year deal after posting a 4.99 ERA the year before.

This was not how the Dodgers wanted to draw it up, or how they are attempting to draw it up this year, but it worked in 2024.

Yankees left-hander Max Fried never needed to stress about run support in his pinstripe debut. His new teammates crushed a franchise-record nine home runs — four of which came during the very first inning — in an emphatic 20-9 drubbing of the Milwaukee Brewers on Saturday in the Bronx.

But the historic offensive production didn’t even help Fried register a win. The southpaw failed to complete five innings of work, as a slew of fielding errors and unlucky soft contact resulted in six Brewers runs — two of which were earned — by the time he was pulled with two outs in the fourth at 94 pitches.

Fried’s underwhelming season debut simply took a back seat to the Yankees’ onslaught. Blame it on the poor defense behind him, or the lengthy breaks in the dugout while the lineup flaunted its power. But the team’s biggest acquisition of the winter didn’t resemble his established ace self.

The obvious good news is that the calendar has yet to flip to April. It wasn’t the performance that Fried wanted or fans expected, but it’s easy to shrug off mistakes on Opening Weekend.

“I would’ve loved to [qualify for the win], but there were a lot of things throughout the outing that I didn’t do my part in to be able to earn that,” Fried said after the game. “Adding a bunch of pitches, the PFP [error] in the second inning added a bunch of pitches. I walked a bunch of guys. It wasn’t a clean game. So at that point, if I wanted to be able to earn that, I should’ve done a lot more earlier in the game.”

Fried’s afternoon started on an efficient note. He induced a weak comebacker on the first pitch of the game, recorded a scoreless top frame, and watched sluggers Paul Goldschmidt, Cody Bellinger, and Aaron Judge put on a show with three straight homers on three straight pitches from former Yankees lefty Nestor Cortes.

But a 4-0 lead entering the second inning didn’t provide enough comfort. After allowing two singles and a hit-by-pitch, the Brewers scored their second run on a throwing error by Anthony Volpe. Two batters later, Fried committed his own gaffe with a poor throw to first base on another soft comebacker.

Max Fried was asked how much he wanted to stay in the game to get through five innings and qualify for a win:

“I would’ve loved to do it, but there was a lot of things throughout the outing that I didn’t do my part in to be able to earn that.” pic.twitter.com/E3nM2Igril

— Yankees Videos (@snyyankees) March 29, 2025

A pair of errors from Pablo Reyes and one from Jazz Chisholm Jr. extended the fourth and fifth innings, and Fried ultimately exited with a somewhat unsatisfying 16-6 lead.

“He did great. There were a few plays that we could’ve made behind him,” Goldschmidt said of Fried. “He did a good job staying focused and just continuing to attack them. It wasn’t a perfect outing, by any means. We kind of hurt him on defense a couple times… It just showed a lot about his character, the type of pitcher he is to not give in.”

It’s no secret that the Yankees are heavily relying on Fried to take command of the starting rotation. The team lost Gerrit Cole to season-ending elbow surgery earlier this month, and when they signed Fried to an eight-year, $218 million contract in December, he assumed ace-level responsibilities.

The pressure on Fried is immense — he’s the de facto ace. But the results from Saturday aren’t indicative of what’s to come. The 30-year-old lefty earned two All-Star nominations during his eight-year run with the Atlanta Braves, and his 3.08 ERA over the last six seasons ranked third among starters with 800-plus innings.

Fried is slated to make his second start on the road next Friday, when the Yankees begin a three-game set against the Pittsburgh Pirates. Manager Aaron Boone isn’t the least bit worried about the prized lefty, even if the anomalous offense and defense make the trip to Pennsylvania.

“Obviously we didn’t catch the ball great, that’s an understatement. Probably not his best command, hitting a couple of guys,” the skipper said of Fried. “As great of a fielder as he is, he didn’t make a play. I thought overall he threw the ball fine, we’re just giving way too many outs. It’s hard to get a read on the outing, but I thought stuff-wise, he threw the ball well.”

With Juan Soto playing across town now after his one-year stint in The Bronx, the Yankees knew they had to do something during the offseason to make up for the loss of the generational 26-year-old.

That something was bringing in a cast of characters, including Paul Goldschmidt and Cody Bellinger, in an effort to lengthen their lineup and help with their depth outside of Aaron Judge. In just New York’s second game of the season, those moves paid off in a big way.

Facing former Yankee Nestor Cortes and the Milwaukee Brewers in Game 2 of the regular season, Goldschmidt, Bellinger and Judge hit three straight home runs — on three straight pitches — off the lefty to start the game. Before most of the 46,683 fans in attendance could even sit down and take a bite out of their hot dog, the Bronx Bombers — true to their name — had a 3-0 lead.

“Swing first pitch,” Judge said with a laugh on what was going through his mind walking up to the plate in that first inning. “The place was rocking once I got up there. I was just trying to control [my] breathing and just get a good pitch.”

Good pitch he got, indeed, sending an 88-mph cutter 468 feet to left field, the farthest and loudest of the three first-inning home runs.

But it was Goldschmidt, making his first plate appearance at the leadoff spot, who got the party started with a solo shot to lead things off, just as Austin Wells, who was as unfamiliar batting first as Goldschmidt, did in Thursday’s season opener. It was the 37-year-old’s first hit as a Yankee.

Overall, the first baseman went 2-for-3 with a double, a walk and three runs scored, passing his first test batting leadoff with flying colors.

“It’s tough to start better than that,” Goldschmidt said. “I just tried to take my same at-bat, my same mindset. Fortunately I was able to get a good pitch to hit and get it out of there.”

Congratulations, Aaron Boone, you’re two for two.

Fellow newcomer Bellinger followed soon after with a blast to right center field and in the blink of an eye, New York was on top, 2-0.

“That was a really cool moment,” Bellinger said. “Super unique to be a part of and it was just nice to get the party started.”

After hitting his first home run in pinstripes, Bellinger noted that Saturday’s win was a great way for all of the newcomers to feel comfortable with their new team and get some of those firsts out of the way. Whether it be first hit with the new club, first home run, or even just first game as it was for J.C. Escarra, who made his MLB debut by pinch-hitting in the seventh inning.

Another first almost happened, too.

Following his first-inning homer, Judge hit a second home run (this one a grand slam) in the third before going yard again in the fourth for his third three-home run game, tying him with Joe DiMaggio and Alex Rodriguez for second in Yankees history behind Lou Gehrig‘s four.

“It’s a special group,” Judge said. “Any time you get mentioned with those guys, with what they’ve done in the game and the careers they’ve had, it’s pretty special. Our story’s not done yet, so hopefully we can keep adding to those lists.”

The reigning AL MVP would have three more plate appearances to try at his first four-homer game, something accomplished by just 18 players in MLB history.

In fact, Judge came a few feet away from achieving that feat after his RBI double off the right field wall in the sixth inning. Then in the eighth, facing position-player and former Yankee Jake Bauers, Judge hit another long fly ball to left field that barely left the yard but was caught.

“Nothing’s out of reach for him,” Boone said. “I wanted to give him that opportunity at least.”

Judge ended his day 4-for-6 with three homers and eight RBI — quite the contrast from his less-than-stellar spring training.

As for the rest of the lineup, Wells, Anthony Volpe, Jazz Chisholm Jr. and Oswald Peraza also went deep, giving New York a total of nine home runs on the afternoon, a franchise record.

“We like where we’re at. We love our lineup, we love our depth, we love the guys that we got in this locker room and it’s gonna be fun,” Bellinger said. “This is a very difficult game, but we got a lot of guys that have been there and are gonna have some fun doing it.”

NEW YORK — Upon arriving at Yankee Stadium for Opening Day, Nestor Cortes Jr. wasn’t sure where to go. Maybe, considering his historically dreadful performance on Saturday in his Brewers debut, he should have stayed lost.

Facing his old club, Cortes surrendered back-to-back-to-back home runs on the first three pitches he threw in the bottom of the first inning. It was the first time in MLB history that a team went deep on three consecutive pitches to begin a game. Cortes allowed two more long balls before he was removed with no outs in the third.

In all, the Yankees hit nine home runs during a 20-9 bludgeoning of the Milwaukee Brewers, breaking their franchise record for homers in a game. Aaron Judge, who went deep in his first three at-bats, missed becoming the 19th player in MLB history with a four-homer game by about 2 feet when he doubled off the wall in the sixth.

It was a momentous drubbing, a thorough dismembering, a home run derby disguised as a ballgame. And for Cortes, the afternoon was an embarrassing homecoming of epic proportions.

The former Yankee, dealt to Milwaukee in December, entered this Bronx ballyard no fewer than 300 times during his four-year stretch in pinstripes. Over that eventful tenure, Cortes went from anonymous fill-in reliever to cult-hero All-Star starter to postseason scapegoat. Undersized, with a slight paunch and a magic fastball, the crafty Cuban endeared himself to both clubhouse and fan base.

But as the Brewers filed off the team bus Thursday morning, Cortes realized he was turned around; he hadn’t entered Yankee Stadium as a visitor since 2018. With his new club serendipitously beginning its 2025 season in the Bronx, this very familiar setting, suddenly inverted, proved perplexing.

“I didn’t know whether to turn right or left in the tunnel,” Cortes admitted to Yahoo Sports on Thursday, his short buzz cut dyed a striking hue of metallic silver.

If Cortes was disoriented on Thursday, the repeated exercise of contorting his neck to watch home runs zoom over his head on Saturday must’ve left him discombobulated beyond belief. The experience was so disheartening, in fact, that the pitcher left the stadium without addressing the media, a notable, frowned upon breach of postgame protocol.

When Cortes allowed Freddie Freeman’s now famous walk-off grand slam in Game 1 of last year’s World Series, the bedraggled hurler owned it, answering question after question in the visiting clubhouse at Dodger Stadium. On Opening Day, wave after wave of Yankees reporters shuffled into the Brewers clubhouse to check in with Cortes. And for 20 minutes, he patiently held court, interacting with the people who used to cover him and explaining how bizarre it felt to be back in the Big Apple.

“Fun, competitive, exciting, all of the above,” Cortes responded when asked how he’d remember his time with the Yankees. “It was an honor to play for that team.”

Surely he’ll remember this most recent Yankees experience much, much differently.

During his stint with New York, Cortes succeeded thanks to the shape and command of his fastball. But from pitch one of his implosion Saturday, the southpaw had neither. His heater sat around 90 mph, down a few ticks from last year. More damningly, Cortes, who also walked five batters in the outing, failed to locate the pitch on the edges of the strike zone.

“He’s a guy that’s gonna go out there and throw strikes and attack you,” Judge said after the game, “so we just tried to go out there and be aggressive in our zone.”

That aggression began with Paul Goldschmidt, leading off for the first time in his 15-year MLB career in his second game as a Yankee. The veteran first baseman pounced on an elevated heater and did not miss, cranking his first Yankees homer. Cody Bellinger, another offseason acquisition, followed suit one pitch later. A rowdy home crowd didn’t even have the opportunity to sit back down as Bellinger’s blast roared into the right-field bleachers.

And then Judge, the defending AL MVP, strolled to the plate.

“Goldie and Belli, they really set the table there and got things going,” Judge said afterward. “Man, the place was rocking once I walked up there.”

Judge kept the noise coming, flattening a flat Cortes cutter 468 feet to left field for the seventh-longest homer of his career. It was the first of the three homers for Judge on the day and the third of the whopping nine for the Yankees, who came within one long ball of tying the all-time single-game record, set by the Toronto Blue Jays in 1987.

The most back-breaking blast of the afternoon was the fifth one. Milwaukee had clawed back into the game on a few Yankees errors and trailed just 4-3 entering the bottom of the second. But with two outs and two on, Cortes flopped a soggy cutter into Anthony Volpe’s wheelhouse. The young Yankees shortstop turned on the pitch, lofting it over the wall in left and ruining Cortes’ day once and for all. As Volpe rounded the sacks, Milwaukee’s demoralized pitcher strolled about the mound, frustratedly knocking dirt off his cleats.

Twenty minutes later, he was out of the game, headed toward the showers and who knows where. On Sunday, Cortes will trudge his exhausted self back to his house of horrors and face the music. Because while he would probably love to forget all about his catastrophic homecoming, that memory, much like his cherished time in the Bronx, will stay with him forever.

NEW YORK — Upon arriving at Yankee Stadium for Opening Day, Nestor Cortes Jr. wasn’t sure where to go. Maybe, considering his historically dreadful performance on Saturday in his Brewers debut, he should have stayed lost.

Facing his old club, Cortes surrendered back-to-back-to-back home runs on the first three pitches he threw in the bottom of the first inning. It was the first time in MLB history that a team went deep on three consecutive pitches to begin a game. Cortes allowed two more long balls before he was removed with no outs in the third.

In all, the Yankees hit nine home runs during a 20-9 bludgeoning of the Milwaukee Brewers, breaking their franchise record for homers in a game. Aaron Judge, who went deep in his first three at-bats, missed becoming the 19th player in MLB history with a four-homer game by about 2 feet when he doubled off the wall in the sixth.

It was a momentous drubbing, a thorough dismembering, a home run derby disguised as a ballgame. And for Cortes, the afternoon was an embarrassing homecoming of epic proportions.

The former Yankee, dealt to Milwaukee in December, entered this Bronx ballyard no fewer than 300 times during his four-year stretch in pinstripes. Over that eventful tenure, Cortes went from anonymous fill-in reliever to cult-hero All-Star starter to postseason scapegoat. Undersized, with a slight paunch and a magic fastball, the crafty Cuban endeared himself to both clubhouse and fan base.

But as the Brewers filed off the team bus Thursday morning, Cortes realized he was turned around; he hadn’t entered Yankee Stadium as a visitor since 2018. With his new club serendipitously beginning its 2025 season in the Bronx, this very familiar setting, suddenly inverted, proved perplexing.

“I didn’t know whether to turn right or left in the tunnel,” Cortes admitted to Yahoo Sports on Thursday, his short buzz cut dyed a striking hue of metallic silver.

If Cortes was disoriented on Thursday, the repeated exercise of contorting his neck to watch home runs zoom over his head on Saturday must’ve left him discombobulated beyond belief. The experience was so disheartening, in fact, that the pitcher left the stadium without addressing the media, a notable, frowned upon breach of postgame protocol.

When Cortes allowed Freddie Freeman’s now famous walk-off grand slam in Game 1 of last year’s World Series, the bedraggled hurler owned it, answering question after question in the visiting clubhouse at Dodger Stadium. On Opening Day, wave after wave of Yankees reporters shuffled into the Brewers clubhouse to check in with Cortes. And for 20 minutes, he patiently held court, interacting with the people who used to cover him and explaining how bizarre it felt to be back in the Big Apple.

“Fun, competitive, exciting, all of the above,” Cortes responded when asked how he’d remember his time with the Yankees. “It was an honor to play for that team.”

Surely he’ll remember this most recent Yankees experience much, much differently.

During his stint with New York, Cortes succeeded thanks to the shape and command of his fastball. But from pitch one of his implosion Saturday, the southpaw had neither. His heater sat around 90 mph, down a few ticks from last year. More damningly, Cortes, who also walked five batters in the outing, failed to locate the pitch on the edges of the strike zone.

“He’s a guy that’s gonna go out there and throw strikes and attack you,” Judge said after the game, “so we just tried to go out there and be aggressive in our zone.”

That aggression began with Paul Goldschmidt, leading off for the first time in his 15-year MLB career in his second game as a Yankee. The veteran first baseman pounced on an elevated heater and did not miss, cranking his first Yankees homer. Cody Bellinger, another offseason acquisition, followed suit one pitch later. A rowdy home crowd didn’t even have the opportunity to sit back down as Bellinger’s blast roared into the right-field bleachers.

And then Judge, the defending AL MVP, strolled to the plate.

“Goldie and Belli, they really set the table there and got things going,” Judge said afterward. “Man, the place was rocking once I walked up there.”

Judge kept the noise coming, flattening a flat Cortes cutter 468 feet to left field for the seventh-longest homer of his career. It was the first of the three homers for Judge on the day and the third of the whopping nine for the Yankees, who came within one long ball of tying the all-time single-game record, set by the Toronto Blue Jays in 1987.

The most back-breaking blast of the afternoon was the fifth one. Milwaukee had clawed back into the game on a few Yankees errors and trailed just 4-3 entering the bottom of the second. But with two outs and two on, Cortes flopped a soggy cutter into Anthony Volpe’s wheelhouse. The young Yankees shortstop turned on the pitch, lofting it over the wall in left and ruining Cortes’ day once and for all. As Volpe rounded the sacks, Milwaukee’s demoralized pitcher strolled about the mound, frustratedly knocking dirt off his cleats.

Twenty minutes later, he was out of the game, headed toward the showers and who knows where. On Sunday, Cortes will trudge his exhausted self back to his house of horrors and face the music. Because while he would probably love to forget all about his catastrophic homecoming, that memory, much like his cherished time in the Bronx, will stay with him forever.