ARLINGTON — Fresh off a rehab start and a lower back strain, Luis Gil declared himself ready for the real thing on Monday.
“I feel good,” said the righty, who allowed three earned runs over 3.2 innings for Double-A Somerset on Sunday. “I feel in a spot that I can go out and compete.”
The Yankees are in agreement, as Gil is expected to start against the Cubs at Wrigley Field this weekend. Exactly when remains to be seen, as Clarke Schmidt is also supposed to rejoin the rotation following a lat injury.
He started at Double-A on Monday night.
“We’ll kind of get through today and figure out how we’ll set up the weekend.” Aaron Boone said before the Yankees played the Rangers.
The Yankees have to figure out more than just their weekend pitching plans, though.
Barring any additional injuries between then and now, the team will have six healthy starters once Gil and Schmidt are back. The others are Gerrit Cole, Carlos Rodón, Marcus Stroman and Nestor Cortes.
While Rodón had the highest ERA (4.31) of the group before Cole’s Monday start, it’s hard to see the Yankees pulling him from their rotation given his $27 million salary. Cortes, meanwhile, has lacked consistency all season, was second-worst with a 4.08 ERA, and has experience pitching out of the bullpen.
Schmidt also has experience there, but he had a 2.52 ERA over 11 starts before getting hurt. There has also been speculation that Gil could eventually move to the bullpen. While his electric stuff could play well in such a role, his inconsistent command could hurt him.
“We’ll see,” Boone said of having to make a tough decision. “We’re not at that point yet. Hopefully a decision is not made for us because something comes up or something happens. And when we get to that point, hopefully we’re in a position that we have to make a tough call on somebody, and we’ll do that when we have to do it.”
Added Gil: “I don’t know how it’s going to shake out. At the end of the day, that’s not my job.”
While a rotation crunch may be coming, the Yankees could delay a decision.
The team has opted against using six-man rotations in the past. However, Boone didn’t rule out using all six starters for one turn after the Texas series.
“There’s a possibility we could do that one time through or get creative in another way,” he said. “We’ll kind of work through that here probably over the next 24-48 hours.”
HAMILTON GETTING BACK TO IT
Boone added that Ian Hamilton is expected to appear in a rehab game Wednesday or Thursday. Out with a lat injury, he was supposed to pitch in what could have been his last rehab game on Friday before back spasms got in the way.