Luis Gil Enters Historic Territory in Latest Dominating Performance

The Yankees were back home and they just keep rolling as they won their sixth straight game with a ho-hum 5-1 victory over the Twins. Luis Gil was once again dominant, continuing his otherworldly start to the 2024 season. Down in Box Score Briefs, the White Sox lose their 12th straight, the Orioles stay hot on the Yankees’ heels, Jared Jones of the Pirates and Max Fried of the Braves were great, and the Guardians rallied for a big win over the Royals. Lets get to it.

June 4: Yankees 5, Twins 1

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Luis Gil was outstanding, pretty much unhittable, and the Yankees cruised to another victory over their favorite foil, the Twins.

The AL pitcher of the month for May picked up in June where he left off as he toyed with the anemic Twins. He threw six scoreless innings, gave up just one hit, walked three and struck out six. He won his seventh consecutive start and lowered his season ERA to an MLB-best 1.82, his WHIP to 0.923, and his batting average against to .129.

The Twins have no one to blame but themselves. They traded Gil to the Yankees in exchange for outfielder Jake Cave back in March 2018, a deal that, I guarantee you, no one gave a second thought to six years ago.

Gil is the first pitcher since 1901 to throw at least six innings while allowing five hits or fewer and one run or fewer in seven straight games. Can you even comprehend that? 1901. The Yankees weren’t even a franchise in 1901. They were still based in Baltimore and didn’t move to New York until 1903, nicknamed the Highlanders.

It’s absolutely absurd what this guy is doing. He has now pitched 69.1 innings and has allowed just 30 hits, just four of those home runs. His 3.9 hits allowed per nine innings leads MLB and the next-best figure is barely in the same zip code, 6.2 by Seattle’s Bryce Miller.

The funny thing about Tuesday is that Gil wasn’t as great as he’s been because he “only” struck out six and there were a few moments where his command was off, evidenced by the three walks. But it didn’t matter because the Twins couldn’t do anything even when Gil gave them a chance.

“I didn’t think he was overwhelming tonight, but he still walked through six innings,” Aaron Boone said. “It’s just hard to get a hit off him. His stuff really plays. You know, that fastball is real. The hitters show you that every time.”

Here are my observations:

➤ It was a mostly quiet night on offense until Giancarlo Stanton broke open a tight game with a two-run bomb to left in the eighth which made it 5-1. The Yankees had only six hits, but they were certainly productive and the Twins have to feel like they’re just forever jinxed against the Yankees as they fell to 0-4 this year.

➤ New York’s first run came on a second-inning solo homer by Gleyber Torres that went off right fielder Max Kepler’s glove and bounced over the wall. Outside of it nearly being caught, Yankee Stadium is the only park that would have been a home run, so that was a nice break.

➤ And then the two runs the Yankees scored in the third came when DJ LeMahieu walked, Anthony Volpe ripped a single, and Aaron Judge hit a 73 mph flubber off the end of his bat that landed on the right-field line. LeMahieu scored, and Volpe was able to score when Kepler mishandled the ball. Another nice break.

➤ The Twins hung around and made it 3-1 in the seventh on a Royce Lewis solo homer off Tommy Kahnle, but then Stanton unloaded in the eighth, his 150th homer as a Yankee. He reached that milestone in 603 games, thus becoming the sixth-fastest in Yankee history behind Babe Ruth (411 games), Roger Maris (508), Judge (552), Alex Rodriguez (557), and Jason Giambi (599). Also, it was his 15th homer of the year and now he, Judge (21) and Soto (17) are the only threesome in Yankees history to have at least 15 homers in the first 62 games of a season. Lastly, Stanton became just the 13th player in history to hit 150 home runs in both leagues.

➤ The homer by Lewis was the first run Kahnle has allowed in 4.2 innings for the Yankees, plus the five perfect innings he threw during his rehab assignment. Ian Hamilton looked as good as he has since early April with an easy eighth, and Luke Weaver was as good as he’s been all year with a 1-2-3 ninth. Weaver’s strikeout of Carlos Correa finished off the first four-strikeout game of Correa’s career as Gil got him three times.

➤ Volpe and Judge each extended their on-base streaks to 30 games. They are the first Yankee teammates to do that within one season since Red Rolfe and Charlie Keller in 1939. In MLB, they’re the first teammates since Rafael Furcal and Andruw Jones of the 2003 Braves to have simultaneous 30-game on-base streaks.

➤ Gerrit Cole had a very nice first rehab start at Double-A Somerset. He pitched 3.2 innings and gave up no runs, two hits, no walks and had five strikes. He threw 45 pitches, 34 for strikes, and was hitting 95-97 with his fastball. “Definitely close,” he said. “I’m not sure how many more we’ll need but definitely closer rather than farther away. It should be right around the corner here.”

⚾ What a nightmare season for the White Sox. They went into Tuesday with a 15-45 record, worst in MLB, but they went over to the North side of Chicago to play the Cubs at Wrigley Field and jumped out to a 5-0 lead against their crosstown rival. Against the weak-hitting Cubs, that probably felt pretty safe. Four of the five runs against Cubs starter Shota Imanaga were unearned thanks to a Christopher Morel error, but still, for the White Sox scoring five runs no matter how they come was an achievement.

However, the fun did not last and they wound up losing 7-6. After a 42-minute rain delay in the fifth, the Cubs scored once in the fifth, then tied it in the sixth by scoring four times with two outs as Morel and Patrick Wisdom each hit two-run homers. A Luis Robert homer in the seventh put the Sox back up, but then in the eighth, Ian Happ delivered a game-winning two-run double for the Cubs. The White Sox have now lost 12 straight.

⚾ The Orioles continue to keep the pressure on the Yankees as they romped the Jays 10-1 in Toronto. Baltimore is 39-20 and just 2.5 games behind the Yankees despite New York’s 43-19 start. Ryan Mountcastle has caught fire as he hit a three run homer in the third and a two-run shot in the fifth. Mountcastle has 88 career home runs and 17 have come against the Blue Jays including eight at Rogers Centre which is pretty wild. “I think he loves to hit here, and I think whenever you have positive moments somewhere, it feels good to be in that spot, and so I’m sure he loves playing here,” Orioles manager Brandon Hyde said.

Corbin Burnes toyed with the Jays for seven innings, and the latest in an endless supply of talented Orioles’ prospects was recalled from Triple-A Norfolk and produced his first MLB hit as second baseman Connor Norby hit a two-run homer in the eighth. He was called up because Sunday, Jorge Mateo was accidentally hit on the head by teammate Cedric Mullins who was swinging a bat in the on deck circle and is now in concussion protocol for a week.

⚾ The Dodgers, who will be at Yankee Stadium for an enormous series this weekend, were blanked 1-0 by the Pirates as rookie phenom Jared Jones and three relievers allowed just five hits. Pittsburgh scored the only run of the game when Jack Suwinski homered off Tyler Glasnow in the third. Glasnow gave up only three hits while striking out nine and his ERA dipped to 2.93, but his teammates gave him nothing.

The bottom of the Dodgers’ lineup has been a big problem all year and in this game the 5-thru-9 hitters went a combined 1-for-18. Second baseman Gavin Lux, who has been a big disappointment, had the hit but his average still dropped to .210 while Chris Taylor’s 0-for-4 dropped him to .103.

⚾ Atlanta’s Max Fried struck out a career-high 13 Red Sox across seven innings in an 8-3 win at Fenway. This on the heels of eight shutout innings against the Nationals in his last turn. Fried got off to a lousy start when he was lit up in his first two outings of the year, but over the last 10 he has pitched to a 1.83 ERA.

⚾ The Guardians are hosting a big series against the Royals, their closest pursuers in the AL Central. Cleveland won the opener 8-5 and stretched its lead over Kansas City to five games as it rallied from a 5-0 deficit. Bobby Witt hit a pair of two-run homers to get the Royals rolling, but in the fourth, Josh Naylor’s two-run homer got the Guardians within 5-3.

And then in seventh, Cleveland scored five times as Tyler Freeman hit a two-run homer off Seth Lugo to tie it, and later, Witt made an error with the bases loaded that allowed three runs to score. The Guardians now have 40 wins in their first 60 games for just the fourth time in franchise history, and 15 of them have been comeback wins.