Phillies vs. Yankees prediction: Bet on a slugfest Tuesday night at Yankee Stadium

There hasn’t been a whole lot for Philadelphia Phillies fans to cheer about through the early part of the 2023 season.

Same goes for Phillies bettors.

The defending National League champions not only are off to an 0-4 start, but they’re the only team in MLB that has yet to taste the fruits of victory. As such, they enter Tuesday as baseball’s least profitable club in wagering circles.

The bright side? The Phillies, who have dropped seven straight games dating back to Game 3 of last year’s World Series, aren’t going 0-162. Will victory No. 1 come Tuesday night against the Yankees in The Bronx? Maybe. But just like Monday, we don’t recommend betting on it. Nor do we recommend wagering on New York.

Instead, our Phillies vs. Yankees prediction is all about the total.

Odds updated as of 12:45 p.m. ET on March 4.

Philadelphia’s dormant offense has to wake up at some point. And we’re banking on the alarm clock going off at about 7:05 p.m. ET Tuesday.

Since plating five runs in the first five innings in Thursday’s Opening Day loss in Texas, the Phillies have tallied just seven runs in their last 31 innings.

The primary issue: an inability to get clutch hits or smack the ball out of the ballpark.

Philadelphia is actually batting .287 as a team — that’s the fifth best average in MLB. However, it’s an average that dips to .231 with runners in scoring position.

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More disturbingly — and shockingly — the Phillies have only hit one home run. And that came off the bat of third baseman Alec Bohm in the second inning on Opening Day.

So why should you bet on Philadelphia’s bats to come through Tuesday? Because we don’t trust Yankees starting pitcher Domingo Germán. In fact, he’s the only reason we didn’t recommend a wager on New York for the second straight day.

Germán did have a solid, albeit injury-abbreviated, 2022 campaign, as his 3.61 ERA and 1.16 WHIP belied his 2-5 record. But the right-hander had a horrendous spring training, posting an 8.71 ERA in 10 1/3 innings.

His last spring outing back on March 17 was particularly dreadful: seven runs and nine hits in 2 2/3 innings against the weak-hitting Tigers.

Germán also has an unsightly 8.68 ERA in three career appearances (two starts) against Philadelphia. So the Phillies’ hitters should continue to make solid contact Tuesday — and that contact should finally lead to some runs.

Speaking of run production, that certainly hasn’t been a problem for the Yankees. With Monday’s 8-1 victory, New York has now tallied 24 runs on the season. The per-game output: 5, 5, 6 and 8.

Also unlike Philadelphia, the Yankees have been launching balls into orbit. They’ve belted multiple homers in all four games and have nine big flies in all.

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New York has done most of its damage against right-handed pitching, which is noteworthy because the Bronx Bombers will be facing a southpaw Tuesday.

Matt Strahm, who signed with the Phillies in the offseason, has spent the bulk of his eight-year big-league career as a reliever. In fact, 74 of his 75 appearances the last three seasons with Boston and San Diego have come out of the bullpen. And in his Phillies debut Thursday, he pitched a scoreless eighth inning against the Rangers.

But Strahm also has made 25 career starts — mostly as an “opener” — and the results haven’t been great: 4-10, 5.08 ERA. The last time Strahm started a game when not an opener (as will be the case Tuesday), he got torched for seven runs and 11 hits against the Giants in July 2019.

That terrible outing capped a monthlong, five-start stretch in which Strahm surrendered 28 runs (all earned) in just 23 2/3 innings. That’s a 10.65 ERA.

Add it all up and we expect the Phillies’ offense to finally break out of its doldrums; we expect the Yankees’ offense to finally do some damage against left-handed pitching; and we expect to see double-digit runs on the Yankee Stadium scoreboard.

Play this one Over the total at Caesars Sportsbook.

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The Inquirer is not an online gambling operator, or a gambling site. We provide this information about sports betting for entertainment purposes only.