TAMPA — Nestor Cortes — who was born in Cuba and raised in Miami; who was just a 36th-round pick out of high school and defied the odds to make his major league debut in 2018, who emerged as both an entertaining and effective Yankees pitcher in 2021 and who broke out as a 2022 All-Star — will add one more bullet point to what is a growing and impressive résumé.
The lefty will be the Yankees’ Opening Day starter, manager Aaron Boone announced Friday, ending a saga that featured the team’s first two choices unable to take the ball.
Boone met with Cortes to deliver news that was both expected — Cortes was the logical next man up — but startling all the same to a pitcher who is more everyman than celebrity.
“Pretty amazing. It’s a little surreal for me,” Cortes said after throwing a live batting practice on a backfield at Steinbrenner Field.
Cortes acknowledged that a young Nestor would not have believed he could earn the honor. The Yankees have had just four Opening Day pitchers since 2009: Gerrit Cole, Masahiro Tanaka, Luis Severino and CC Sabathia.
“I’d always been up and down early in my career and at best be the fifth starter,” Cortes said before the Yankees’ 6-2 exhibition loss to the Pirates. “I was able to get an All-Star [berth] under my belt. But this was far-fetched for me.
“Happy Aaron Boone and the organization have the trust in me to go out there for the first game.”
Cortes became the choice after Cole hurt his throwing elbow, which is expected to keep him sidelined for perhaps two months but is not expected to end his season, and after Marcus Stroman preferred to remain on his current throwing schedule.
Boone and Cashman met with Stroman recently to gauge his interest in getting the nod, and the first-year Yankee did not want to upend his throwing schedule to bump him from Game 3 to Game 1.
Amid a bit of a fan backlash directed toward Stroman, Boone clarified that his own desire was for Stroman to remain on his current schedule, but he wanted to at least see what Stroman wanted.
“My preference was to have him [remain on schedule],” Boone said. “But I want to just be deferential to him and out of respect for him say, ‘If you want to move, we can move you.’ But his answer was: ‘Whatever you guys need.’ ”
With two candidates down, the only surefire Yankees starters left were Cortes and Clarke Schmidt, who started Friday against the Pirates on regular, four days’ rest. Schmidt’s schedule would need to be altered significantly if he were to be ready for March 28.
Cortes, meanwhile, has been pitching every sixth day through a camp in which he is building up slowly. Cortes had rotator cuff issues last year and for some of the offseason and is happy thus far with how his body and shoulder are bouncing back after outings.
Cortes can remain on schedule and just needs to bake an extra day into his rest after his next outing, which will come Thursday.
“The more rest the better,” said Cortes, who has played all of his career with something to prove and will have more to prove this year.
After two excellent seasons — posting a 2.61 ERA in 50 games in 2021-22 while relying upon guile, deception and movement rather than velocity — Cortes struggled last year. He logged a 4.97 ERA in just 12 starts, rotator cuff strains first sidetracking and later ending his season.
Early in his career, he bounced back and forth between the rotation and bullpen before first showing he can be a starter and later showing he can be an excellent starter. He now will have to show he can return to health and remain one.
The Yankees’ Opening Day starter has beaten longer odds.
“I’ve been up and down [in my career],” Cortes said. “I’ve been put into many different roles throughout my career.
“I feel like I could be the guy to show everybody I can [do it].”
— Additional reporting by Dan Martin