Phillies vs. Yankees prediction: Bet on Nestor Cortes to neutralize Philadelphia’s offense Monday

The Philadelphia Phillies couldn’t have asked for a better start to the 2023 season — well, for the first 3 ½ innings, anyway.

Philadelphia and ace right-hander Aaron Nola took a 5-0 lead into the bottom of the fourth inning in Thursday’s Opening Day matchup against the Rangers in Texas. From there? It was all downhill for the defending National League champs.

Texas plated nine runs in that bottom of the fourth inning, tacked on another 20 runs over the next 2 ½ games and cruised to a three-game sweep.

It’s the Phillies’ first 0-3 start to a campaign since 2016. To avoid the first 0-4 start since that same 2016 season, they will have to knock off a Yankees team that posted two shutouts and crushed seven homers during its season-opening series. And Philadelphia will have to do it as a sizable road underdog, against a starting pitcher who came of age in 2022 and after an overnight flight from Dallas to New York.

Can the Phillies pull off the upset? Of course. Are we betting on it? No.

Odds updated as of 12:15 p.m. ET on April 3.

Way back on Nov. 1, the Phillies belted five home runs on the way to a 7-0 rout of the Houston Astros in Game 2 of the World Series.

At that moment, Philadelphia was 11-3 in the postseason and hadn’t lost consecutive games.

Since Nov. 1? The Phillies have dropped six in a row by the cumulative final score of 41-14. And their top two pitchers — Nola and Zack Wheeler — started four of those contests.

That includes the first two games of 2023 in Texas, which the Rangers won by scores of 11-7 and 16-3.

Philadelphia’s pitching was far better Sunday, but all the offense could muster was a single run. It scored on one of three double plays that the Phillies hit into in a 2-1 loss.

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As if dropping three straight games to start the season wasn’t brutal enough, Philadelphia had to jump on its plane after Sunday night’s defeat and fly three-plus hours to New York for Monday’s opener of a two-game set in the Bronx.

Not exactly ideal, especially for the Phillies’ hitters who will be facing Nestor Cortes. The Yankees’ southpaw went from journeyman to All-Star last season, going 12-4 with a 2.44 ERA, a 0.92 WHIP and a 163-38 strikeout-to-walk ratio in a career-best 158 1/3 innings.

After pitching mostly as a reliever in parts of four seasons from 2018-2022, Cortes made 28 regular-season starts for New York in 2022. Fifteen of those were at Yankee Stadium, where Cortes was dynamite, going 6-1 with a 1.95 ERA.

New York’s overall record when Cortes took the ball last season: 19-9. New York’s home record when Cortes took the ball last season: 12-3.

The Yankees’ powerful offense covered the run line in eight of those 12 home victories. Just as it covered the run line twice in three games against the San Francisco Giants to start this season — New York bookended victories of 5-0 and 6-0 around Saturday’s 7-5 loss.

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Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton each hit a pair of homers during the weekend series. That’s three more bombs than the Phillies’ entire team hit in three games in Texas.

On Monday, Judge, Stanton and the rest of New York’s potent lineup will take its hacks against Taijuan Walker. The veteran right-hander left the Mets to sign a four-year, $72 million free agent deal with Philadelphia in the offseason.

Walker is coming off his best year (12-5, 3.49 ERA). But he’s also surrendered 41 homers over the last two seasons. The Yankees hit seven of those big flies in four Subway Series games against Walker and the Mets.

In fact, Walker has given up a dozen homers in eight career starts against the Bronx Bombers. New York won five of those contests, including four by multiple runs.

Speaking of multi-run victories, it’s been a Yankees specialty of late. Going back to early September 2022 and including the postseason, 17 of New York’s last 22 victories — including 11 of the last 12 overall and seven straight at home — have been by more than one run.

Yes, Cortes missed a chunk of spring training with a hamstring injury. But he wouldn’t be pitching Monday if he wasn’t ready to go. Look for the lefty to neutralize the Phillies’ hitters and for the Yankees to produce enough offense to win by at least two runs.

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