This story was excerpted from Bryan Hoch’s Yankees Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

Before Sunday afternoon, Nestor Cortes hadn’t set foot on a Double-A mound since 2018, when he had yet to earn the “Nasty Nestor” nickname that is now permanently tattooed on his right wrist. In that start, he’d been a big league hopeful simply trying to regain his footing, bewildered after the last-place Orioles had cut him and his 7.74 ERA.

“I said to myself, ‘Man, I just got DFA’ed from the worst team in baseball,’” Cortes said. “How am I going to make it with the best team?”

Those doubts have vanished, helped by Cortes’ All-Star performance last season, when he went 12-4 with a 2.44 ERA. Set back this spring by a hamstring injury that he believes may have altered his mechanics, Cortes was largely unable to replicate that success through his first 11 starts of the regular season, when he went 5-2 with a 5.16 ERA before landing on the injured list.

But that may be about to change -- Cortes hopes so, at least. The 28-year-old made his first Minor League rehab start on Sunday, hurling 2 1/3 innings for Double-A Somerset at Hartford, and he pitched well: Cortes permitted a run on four hits in a 42-pitch effort, walking none and striking out four. Is the “Nasty” back?

“I felt good,” Cortes said. “I'm happy to get out of there healthy and feeling good. I worked all of my pitches; cutter, changeup and slider. I felt like I had a good command out of out of everything today and just looking forward for my next one.”

Cortes said that he has one more rehab start scheduled for Friday, and his next step after that is yet to be determined -- much like with the ongoing rehab plan for Aaron Judge, the organization is trying not to look too far into the future.

But Cortes believes that he could rejoin the Yankees when eligible to be activated from the 60-day IL, which would be in the first week of August -- just in time, potentially, for big showdowns against the Rays and Astros.

“It's just depending on how I feel day by day and making sure that I'm healthy when I do go out there,” Cortes said. “The boys are grinding, but we're confident we're going to come back and be good for the second half.”