New York Yankees left-hander Nestor Cortes spoke to reporters Monday to address the situation with his Twitter account, in which several older tweets that used racial slurs were resurfaced Sunday.

The Hialeah, Fla., product said he deactivated the Twitter account in response, and when asked about the tweets, acknowledged remembering them.

“I’m not gonna say I don’t, but I didn’t realize they were still there,” Cortes said. “It’s unacceptable. I could have managed myself better and said stuff differently.”

Cortes, 27, is one of the top pitchers in baseball this season, having accumulated a 2-1 record with a sparkling 1.35 ERA in seven appearances (all starts) to go along with 49 strikeouts.

“I felt like it wasn’t the right message that I wanted to send out, when I was 17 years old,” Cortes said prior to Monday’s game against the Baltimore Orioles. “Those happened 10 years ago. I deactivated my Twitter to clean stuff up.”

–Field Level Media