The Yankees have a problem.
Luis Gil had an opportunity to ease concerns on Tuesday night after two straight rough outings. The stars were aligned for a bounce-back dominant outing as his opponent were the fourth-place Cincinnati Reds featuring a lineup that ranked 21st in baseball in team OPS entering the night.
However, Gil heightened concerns with another stinker in the Yankees’ 5-4 series-opening loss.
The right-hander tossed four-plus innings allowing four runs on two hits and three walks. His final three batters of the day went as follows: hit by a pitch, home run and hit by a pitch.
“I felt like he came out and threw the ball better, certainly for the first few innings. And then felt like he did get a little bit out of whack again,” Aaron Boone said. “He had some swing and miss going, kind of working underneath the ball at times. Then he lost his command there and had a stretch where getting in the strike zone was difficult for him.
“Obviously going through that fourth and fifth was a struggle. But, yeah, tough outing.”
The 26-year-old’s fifth-inning implosion was in line with what the Bombers saw in his previous two starts. Gil surrendered five runs in 4.1 innings against the Mets on June 26th after allowing seven earned runs in 1.1 innings against the Baltimore Orioles on June 20.
Prior to this three-start stretch, Gil was considered an early candidate for the AL Cy Young award with his stifling 2.03 ERA. However, he now sits at 3.41 and may be knocking on the door of forcing uncomfortable conversations for the Yankees.
The Dominican native has surpassed 90 innings pitched in a season just once in his professional career and that came in 2019 bringing fatigue into question for his recent outings.
“You got to consider everything but I don’t think this is a fatigue issue,” Boone said. “I think it’s a little out of sorts issue and having a harder time correcting on the fly.”
Coming off of Tommy John surgery and now stringing together poor performances, how the Yankees manage Gil moving forward will be watched closely. The Yankees manager did not rule out giving additional days rest — as he’s had in his last four outings pitching on every sixth day as opposed to every fifth due to the Yanks schedule — amongst other options.
The good news for the Bombers is Gil’s stuff seems to still be there in terms of velocity. The starter averaged 96.6 MPH on his fastball Tuesday night which is in line with his season average, however, his command has seemingly gone haywire in recent outings which both Gil and Boone attributed to mechanical issues.
“Mechanically, [I’m] just off. Overall, thing’s mechanically syncing your body to a good point where you feel comfortable [on the mound],” Gil said. “Sometimes you hit bumps when you’re competing at this level. At the same time I feel sure of myself that working hard I will be able to get out of it and not let things like that keep happening.”
With Carlos Rodon’s recent struggles — allowing five or more runs in his last three starts — the Yankees’ rotation is becoming a cause for concern as the once-dominant staff has had some major contributors take a wrong turn.
Meanwhile, the Yankees offense tried to dig itself out of the deep hole but they came up just short. In the bottom of the sixth, the Bombers plated three runs on RBI doubles from Gleyber Torres and Ben Rice to get within two. Aaron Judge then lined his 32nd homer of the season to left field in the bottom of the seventh to make it a 5-4 game.
Boone’s stable — outside of Caleb Ferguson — provided some positives on the pitching side of things. Tommy Kahnle and Luke Weaver combined for three scoreless frames to keep it to a one-run deficit. However, the hole dug by Gil was just too deep as the Yanks bats couldn’t complete the comeback as Alexis Diaz — brother of Mets’ closer Edwin — closed the door in the ninth securing the Reds’ 5-4 win.
The Bombers will look to even the series on Wednesday night at 7:05 p.m. Rodon (4.42 ERA) will get his attempt at a bounce-back outing facing off against Andrew Abbott (3.41 ERA) for the Reds.