The Yankees extended their winning streak to eight before dropping the finale Sunday in Houston as Luis Gil flat out stunk, and it ultimately cost him his roster spot. That aside, winning two of three against the Astros - even this underwhelming version of the long-time nemesis - is always something to celebrate. Lets get to it.

We get greedy when the Yankees go on a winning streak and you want it to last forever, and while that’s impossible, it still sucks when it’s over.

The end of their eight-game ride came Sunday, an ugly 7-4 loss to the Astros who, after getting pounded in the first two games, took out their frustrations on hapless Luis Gil Sunday and avoided a sweep.

Still, it was a hell of a nice run. Dating back to the sweep of the Royals, during the eight straight wins they outscored the enemy 56-16 as everything came together - the offense woke up, the slug returned, and the pitching was stupendous all the way through. Even their bullpen performed well.

This past week was particularly sweet as they swept the Red Sox at Fenway and pretty much ended the tenure of manager Alex Cora who was fired Saturday night. And then they flew down to Houston and while the Astros aren’t the same powerhouse that used to own the Yankees, it was still fun to watch those first two games.

Starting this road trip 5-1 against two of their biggest rivals is pretty good stuff, even with the sour taste that Gil left in our mouths during his miserable performance which is going to be his last for the foreseeable future as he was sent to Triple-A after the game for what might end up being an extended stay.

The Astros lit him up for six runs inside five innings and Gil generated only three swings and misses on his 83 pitches and did not strike out a single batter. His stuff simply isn’t MLB quality right now, and it’s a mystery what has happened because when you get right down to it, he really hasn’t been worth a shit since May 2024 when he went 6-0 with a 0.70 ERA and was named AL pitcher of the month.

Over his final 18 starts that year his ERA shot up to 4.58 and that didn’t include two poor starts he made in the postseason. He was still voted AL rookie of the year (even though I thought Baltimore’s Colton Cowser should have won it), but then in 2025 he suffered a right lat strain in spring training and he’s never come close to being the pitcher the Yankees thought they had.

He missed the first four months and when he came back his fastball velocity was down, his command issues became more prevalent as he averaged 5.2 walks per nine and he had a an unsightly 1.404 WHIP, then made another bad start in the postseason. Coming into 2026, his roster spot was safe only because Rodon, Gerrit Cole and Clarke Schmidt were not going to be ready out of the gate. It is safe no more.

His start in Boston was decent, but when you looked under the hood, it was more a product of the Red Sox being so awful at the plate. And yet as bad as they were, they swung and missed on just three of his 83 pitches - exactly the same as Houston - though they had two strikeouts.

For the season, Gil has pitched 12 fewer innings than any other Yankee starter yet he has allowed the most homers (6), earned runs (13) and walks (11).

“He struggled to get swing-and-miss again,” Aaron Boone said. “He’s just been struggling to get consistency with his delivery and fastball profile. A combination of not quite good enough command, the stuff not being as good as it is when Luis is at his very best - add that up, and you struggle to get that swing-and-miss.”

Rodon made his first rehab start Friday at Single-A Hudson Valley and it went pretty well. The left-hander threw 65 pitches (43 strikes) over 4.1 scoreless innings, striking out four and allowing one hit, one walk and he hit a batter.

“Today was good, just getting back on the bike, feeling the slope out,” Rodón said. “Good to get back in a game and have a couple baserunners, a little bit of adrenaline to it, a real game. I’m champing at the bit you could say. There’s still part of the checklist I got to get through, get the pitch count up, throw a few more games to get back.”

I would guess he’s making at least two more starts and then hopefully he can slot back in sometime in mid-May, and the Cole shouldn’t be too further along. He made his second rehab start Thursday, also at Hudson Valley, and threw 42 strikes on 52 pitches across 4.1 innings, allowing two runs on five hits and a walk.

The Yankees don’t need a fifth starter this next time through the rotation because they have an off day coming up on Thursday. By the time need arises again, the hope is that Rodon will be ready to return, or they’ll just have someone make a spot start - maybe Ryan Yarbrough, or maybe they would call up Elmer Rodriguez who is killing it down in Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.

There’s simply no place for Gil because he can’t be sent to the bullpen due to his maddening inconsistency, so the only viable option was sending him down to S/WB and hopefully he can find some consistency and at least make himself an option if injuries strike down the road.

➤ Seven straight wins, the last four against one team we have hated for our whole lives (Boston) and one we’ve hated for the last decade (Houston). Fun night watching the bats explode for 12 runs on 13 hits, led by the infield as all four starters - Ben Rice, Jazz Chisholm, Jose Caballero and Ryan McMahon - hit home runs. Houston came into this game ranked dead last in ERA, and we saw why.

➤ Chisholm, who firmly established himself as the worst ABS challenger in MLB, is finally starting to wake from his coma as he had a huge night. In the first, after the first three men reached against Lance McCullers Jr., the Yankees got a run when Jose Altuve made a brutal error. Giancarlo Stanton appeared to kill a big inning with a 1-2-3 double play, but Chisholm came through with a two-run single. He then homered in the fourth to make it 5-1, walked and scored in the sixth, and had an RBI single in the seventh and eventually scored when McMahon grounded into a DP.

➤ The bottom of the order did most of the damage - Chisholm, JC Escarra, McMahon and Caballero went 8-for-17 with five runs scored and seven RBI.

➤ The Astros can’t pitch, but they can definitely hit, so Will Warren delivering six innings of two-run ball was impressive. He wasn’t great as he allowed seven hits and a walk, but he made pitches when he needed to. That wasn’t the case for Fernando Cruz who stunk. He hadn’t pitched in eight days and it showed - in the seventh he gave up three hits including two home runs, one of those by infielder Braden Shewmake who the Yankees just traded to the Astros last week in exchange for a minor league pitcher, Wilmy Sanchez.

➤ If there was any doubt about why the Astros are off to such a lousy start, we saw it in the first two games of the series. Their pitching is terrible, particularly their bullpen. In this one, starter Mike Burrows came in with a 6.75 ERA but he actually wasn’t bad - two runs in five innings, both on solo homers by Trent Grisham and Caballero. But once he was out, the Yankees went to work and secured their eighth straight win. And crazy as this sounds because Daikin Park - formerly Minute Maid - has been a house of horrors, this was the Yankees’ 11th win in their last 12 games there.

➤ Austin Wells finally did something productive as he hit a go-ahead homer leading off the seventh, right after Carlos Correa had tied the game at 2-2 with a homer off Ryan Weathers in the sixth. Houston ultimately used three relievers in the seventh, the Yankees sent nine men to the plate and they produced three runs on the homer, two singles and four walks, the last two of those drawn by Cody Bellinger and Chisholm with the bases loaded which forced in runs. Most of the damage came against lefty Bennett Sousa who was making his season debut fresh off the injured list.

➤ A tack-on run came in the eighth when two more walks helped load the bases and Rice just missed a grand slam, settling for a sac fly. And in the ninth, Wells and McMahon had RBI singles to finish off a night where the Yankees had 12 hits and drew 10 walks. That’s insane. Wells’ two RBI matched his season total.

➤ New dad Ryan Weathers came off the paternity list and pitched well - 5.1 innings, two runs on six hits with no walks but only four strikeouts. Still, you’ll take that. He left with a man on base and Cruz came in, looking to atone for his meatball fest the night before. He immediately walked Yordan Alvarez on four pitches - which is better than a two-run homer by that cyborg - and then he buckled down and whiffed the next two men to keep it at 2-2. From there, Jake Bird had a shocking 1-2-3 inning; Camilo Doval started the eighth with a four-pitch walk but then retired three straight on nine pitches; and Tim Hill mopped up in the ninth and after he allowed a solo homer to Christian Walker, he got the next three men on nine pitches.

➤ During the winning streak, the Yankees’ starting pitchers had a 1.17 ERA. That's the third-lowest starter ERA during any span of eight straight wins in franchise history. In 54 innings they had 51 strikeouts and 10 walks. That’s the best way to mask a suspect bullpen.

➤ Caballero had quite the night. He went 3-for-5 and over his last 14 games through Saturday he was hitting .377 with 10 RBI, he stole a base, but also got thrown out twice trying to steal third. Come on, you can’t do that. I know that’s part of his game, to be a pest on the bases and obviously steal them, but if you’re gonna steal third you better make it. The second time came in the seventh in a 3-2 game and almost spiked a rally. He became the second out, but his teammates bailed him out. With Grisham still at first, Rice singled, Judge worked a nice nine-pitch walk, and then the back-to-back bases loaded walks upped the lead to 5-2.

➤ In other big news, the Red Sox fired manager Alex Cora and his coaching staff, doing so after they trounced the Orioles 17-1. Man, that’s cold, but the Red Sox have been terrible all year. Cora is an excellent manager, he’ll get a new job soon (maybe the Phillies if they keep losing) and I’m glad he’s out of Boston.

➤ This was never really a game thanks to Gil’s terrible outing. He walked Correa on four pitches to start the day and I knew right then he was gonna suck, and that was before Walker crushed a two-run homer a couple batters later. Then in the third he got the first two outs before Alvarez singled and Isaac Paredes launched another two-run bomb.

➤ In the fifth, more folly as he walked Correa, Alvarez doubled and that was it. Of course, Paul Blackburn could have helped Gil’s ERA, but he permitted both of those guys to score thanks to an RBI single by Paredes and a two-run double by Walker who was a menace all weekend. That made it 7-0 and there was no rally in their bones as Michael Kay loves to say.

➤ The only offense was a solo homer by Judge in the sixth on his 34th birthday, and then a meaningless three-spot in the ninth as Chisholm beat out an infield hit with two outs, Paul Goldschmidt and Escarra followed with RBI doubles and McMahon had an RBI single. Way too little, way too late.

➤ Spencer Arrighetti, who has been the Astros’ best starter this year, toyed with the Yankees. Seven innings, just three hits including the Judge homer, and eight strikeouts.

➤ Winning eight in a row was more impressive given that Judge hasn’t really done anything lately. During the streak he was 5-for-24 (.208) with just one homer and three RBI. Yes, he walked 13 times so his on-base was a gaudy .486, but the Yankees need him to be ripping balls into the gaps or over the wall. Maybe his home run in this game will get him going again.

➤ The inevitable Stanton injury has arrived. He left Friday’s game in the seventh with calf tightness, didn’t play over the weekend, and he’ll be going on the injured list. This ends what had been a shockingly healthy start to the season for the Yankees, and it opens the door for Jasson Dominguez who is coming up. Dominguez has gotten off to a nice start at Triple-A with a .318 average, .415 on-base and .893 OPS. But here’s the key: Hitting right-handed, he’s 7-for-18 with a 1.172 OPS.

The Yankees move into north Texas to take on the Rangers for three games against a 14-14 team that just hasn’t been able to gain any traction thus far. They just lost a series at home to the A’s and have lost four of their last seven games due in part to a middling offense that ranks 19th in MLB with a .698 OPS and is 24th in runs scored with 113. On the pitching side they’ve been better as their 3.59 staff ERA ranks sixth and their WHIP of 1.250 is tied for seventh.

➤ 3B Josh Jung: He leads the Rangers across the board with a slash line of .308/.360/.560 and an OPS of .920.

➤ SS Corey Seager: Leads the Rangers with six homers and despite a .220 average, his OPS is solid at .756.

➤ 1B Jake Burger: Leads the team with 19 RBI but has also struck out 35 times in 111 at bats.

➤ RF Brandon Nimmo: The ex-Met has started well for Texas as he’s hitting .281 with 12 RBI and a .817 OPS.

➤ RP Jacob Latz: The lefty leads a very good Rangers bullpen as he has a 1.23 ERA and ridiculous 0.477 WHIP.