Yankees' Nestor Cortes deactivates Twitter account after old tweets get shared

New York Yankees left-hander Nestor Cortes has posted a 1.35 ERA across his first seven starts of the 2022 MLB season but was in headlines for a much different reason following his impressive showing against the Chicago White Sox on Sunday. 

Per ESPN and The Associated Press, Cortes explained ahead of Monday's game at the Baltimore Orioles that he deactivated his Twitter account after screenshots of some of his old tweets from roughly a decade ago that included racist slurs were shared on Sunday. The story adds Cortes seemed to be quoting rap lyrics in at least some of the posts, and Dan Martin of the New York Post notes that the 27-year-old used offensive language multiple times and as far back as from 2012 through 2015. 

Cortes admitted he remembered the tweets and said he was "pissed" at himself.

"Those aren’t the messages I want to send out," he said Monday afternoon. "I deleted my Twitter [account] to clean stuff up. Hopefully, I can make a better impact in the world for the people that look up to me to give a better example.

"It's not acceptable. I think I could have managed myself and said stuff differently. But I'm here today to say that I'm going to work on it and fix it."