The Yankees’ winning streak is over, but Luis Gil’s scoreless streak is very much alive.
In his second major league start, the 23-year-old once again hung nothing but zeros, tossing five scoreless innings against the Mariners on Sunday in a 2-0 loss.
Gil left in a scoreless tie and once again put the Yanks in prime position to win, and even showed he can overcome early bouts of inefficiency to push through and get outs.
“I was having trouble commanding my fastball today, therefore I was able to use the slider to correct the angle of my arm and kind of get me back on track,” Gil said after Sunday’s outing. “So a combination of the slider and finally finding command with the fastball.”
Gil allowed just two hits and struck out eight while walking just two, another promising sign for a pitcher who has struggled badly with command all season in the minor leagues, leading Double-A and Triple-A in walk rate before being called up in an emergency move, and has now walked just three in 11 innings in the big leagues.
Most importantly, when he ran into trouble in the second due to an error by Luke Voit, he was able to settle in and escape a bases-loaded, one-out jam and get back into cruise control, passing another important test.
“It was an inning that I was able to make some adjustments there and finally get some strikes in the zone,” Gil said. “The team as behind me, pushing me and allowing me to control my emotions there, and eventually we were able to get out of that inning.”
With Gil’s latest scoreless start, he is the first Yankee since Slow Joe Doyle back in 1906 to begin his big-league career with two scoreless starts of at least five innings. Suddenly, an emergency starter is looking like a key part of the rotation while the pitching staff remains decimated by injuries and COVID-19 cases.
“It means a lot,” Gil said. “Definitely means a lot…this is the beginning of my career, and I just want to thank God because I just want to help the team in any way possible.”
Gil only got his chance due to Gerrit Cole and Jordan Montgomery testing positive for COVID-19 while Luis Severino, Domingo German, and Corey Kluber are all nursing injuries, but the reasoning doesn’t matter. The results have justified his promotion, and he has certainly earned more looks moving forward.
“I came up like this and the two injuries are part of it,” Gil said. “But once you arrive, you gotta do whatever you can to help out.”
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