CHICAGO — That rotation decision is not getting any easier for the Yankees.
For the second straight day, a starter returned from the injured list to turn in a scoreless outing.
After Luis Gil tossed six innings on Friday, Clarke Schmidt picked up where he left off and delivered 4 ²/₃ shutout innings on a pitch count to help send the Yankees to a 2-0 win over the Cubs on Saturday afternoon at a crisp Wrigley Field.
Nestor Cortes, squeezed out of the rotation (for one turn, at least), piggybacked Schmidt and followed with a dominant 4 ¹/₃ innings to finish off the game.
Aaron Boone had Luke Weaver warming for a potential second straight save, but stuck with the cruising Cortes and was rewarded for it.
The Yankees (82-60) clinched the series victory after dropping their past three and will have a chance to sweep the Cubs (72-70) on Sunday with Gerrit Cole on the mound.
Schmidt, making his first start since May 26 (he was diagnosed with a strained lat a few days later), scattered four hits and one walk while striking out a pair across 75 pitches.
He had made three rehab starts but did not build his pitch count all the way back, which is why the Yankees picked Saturday as the day to have Cortes pitch in relief.
At the time he landed on the injured list, Schmidt had pitched to a 2.82 ERA across his first 11 starts of the season.
If the Yankees are getting that pitcher back, it will give them another strong option to start playoff-level games down the stretch and potentially in October.
But at some point, they will have to make a decision about who gets dropped from the rotation. Cortes is expected to start later this week in the series against the Red Sox (which starts on Thursday in The Bronx), as the Yankees use a six-man rotation one time through.
But that will be trimmed down to five by the following week, with the odd man out expected to move to the bullpen.
Schmidt has big league experience as a reliever, but looked sharp in his starting role on Saturday. He got some help from his catcher, Austin Wells, who threw out a pair of Cubs attempting to steal second base.
The second one loomed large. Former Mets prospect Pete Crow-Armstrong singled off Cortes with one out in the fifth inning of a 1-0 game and then tried stealing second with Patrick Wisdom at the plate, but Wells delivered a strong throw to nail him.
Later in the at-bat, Wisdom hit a fly ball down the right-field line that turned into a wind-aided triple, knocking Schmidt out of the game.
Cortes entered and got Christian Bethancourt to pop out to end the threat.
The Yankees gave Schmidt a lead to work with before he even stepped on the mound.
Gleyber Torres led off the game with an infield single — reaching base safely in 30 of his last 31 games while extending his hitting streak to eight games — to deep shortstop. Juan Soto followed with a walk before Javier Assad threw a wild pitch to Aaron Judge that advanced the runners to second and third.
Judge struck out, but Wells followed with a groundout to second base that scored Torres for the 1-0 lead.
Then with two outs in the sixth, Judge and Jazz Chisholm Jr. pulled off a double steal on Drew Smyly’s first pitch to Anthony Rizzo.
Bethancourt’s throw to third base was off-target and went into left field, allowing Judge to trot the final 90 feet to make it 2-0.
