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WATCH: Yankees’ Nestor Cortes, Jordan Montgomery engage in bubble gum throwing battle

Nestor Cortes and Jordan Montgomery know how to keep themselves occupied on days they don’t start.

Joined by Matt Carpenter, the two Yankees lefties made a fun and mindless game of tossing chewed bubble gum from the dugout.

Per usual, the YES Network cameras were rolling.

There’s a lot to unpack here. First, what are the rules of the game? Five points for hitting the dirt? Ten for hitting the grass? 25 for hitting the logo, and maybe bonus points for how the gum bounces? How does the grounds crew feel about this? Not to mention, there’s clearly some gum-wasting going on since it looks barely chewed at all.

And let’s not forget Aaron Judge’s role in this. What did he really think he’d accomplish by pointing out the camera? We know this is a fun-loving Yankees team, Cortes especially. Did he really think he would discourage his teammates from tossing gum onto the field in some random game because the cameras were rolling?

Not this Yankees team. If anything, this should spawn more similar dugout games.

Maybe use peanut shells next, or just a simple bubble-blowing contest. Go a step further and switch up the flavors every game. Start with orange, then standard bubble gum flavor, then watermelon, then maybe go crazy with whatever weird Trident incarnations are out now.

After all, it’s not like these dugout games are distracting the Yankees from winning actual baseball games. They beat the Athletics, 2-1, on Tuesday, gum antics and all. They’re 55-20 on the year hold a comfortable double-digit lead in the American League East.

At this point, it’s just a matter of going for the sweep tomorrow afternoon and continuing what’s been a fantastic 2022 season.

And hopefully Cortes will remember to bring another bucket of bubble gum to help pass the time. It sure beats another round of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, right?

Josh Benjamin has been a staff writer at ESNY since 2018. He has had opinions about everything, especially the Yankees and Knicks. He co-hosts the “Bleacher Creatures” podcast and is always looking for new pieces of sports history to uncover, usually with a Yankee Tavern chicken parm sub in hand.