Some people thought the New York Yankees would be in some trouble at the start of the season without reigning Cy Young award winner Gerrit Cole in the rotation. Cole was shut down in Spring Training and has yet to make his debut, but players such as Luis Gil have more than filled the void.
After not pitching in the major leagues in 2023, Gil has come out of nowhere to anchor this pitching staff. He has been their best starter to this point, putting together some historic performances.
On May 18th against the Chicago White Sox, Luis Gil struck out 14 in 6.0 innings. That broke the rookie record for strikeouts in a game that was previously held by Orlando Hernandez. He followed that up with a 6.1-inning outing against the Seattle Mariners in which he allowed only one hit with two walks and eight strikeouts.
That has capped the best five-game stretch for a starting pitcher in New York Yankees history. Over his last five games, he has a 0.59 ERA with 35 strikeouts and only 12 hits allowed in 30.2 innings pitched.
As shared by Katie Sharp of StatHead and Talkin’ Yanks, Luis Gil is in a class all on his own. He is the first player to record an ERA lower than 0.60 with 35+ strikeouts and fewer than 15 hits allowed in a five-game span in franchise history.
It wasn’t too long ago that any pitcher accomplished this feat. While pitching with the San Francisco Giants, Blake Snell reached those thresholds during in September of his Cy Young campaign in 2023.
For New York Yankees fans who were clamoring for Brian Cashman to sign Snell in the offseason, it turns out they already had him on the roster. It will be interesting to see how long this keeps up as some analysts believe Luis Gil will lose his rotation spot once Cole is healthy enough to return.
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