Luis Gil strikes out career high as Yankees win

NEW YORK — It was the top of the third inning on Sunday, and Luis Gil’s frustration boiled over, having been called for a balk that waved in a run. Rearing back for a strikeout, he then glared at the home plate umpire, prompting manager Aaron Boone to intercept his young right-hander with a crucial message: Let it go.

Cooler thoughts prevailed as Gil followed those instructions, representing another valuable learning experience as he continued to solidify his spot in the rotation. Gil was rewarded with a career-high nine strikeouts and his first big league win in three years as the Yankees held on for a 5-4 victory over the Rays at Yankee Stadium.

“It feels great to be able to get the win,” Gil said through an interpreter. “Every time you have an opportunity like that, you just want to go out and battle.”

Alex Verdugo’s tiebreaking two-run single highlighted a four-run fifth inning as the Yankees notched their sixth series win in seven tries, having won at least 15 of their first 22 games for just the fifth time in the past 21 years (also 2010, ’17, ’20 and ’22).

“Bases loaded, we just wanted to make sure we cashed in on something,” said Verdugo, who tied his season high with three hits. “I think the swing was good today — working line drives, seeing it deep, staying inside of it. Good things were happening.”

Coming off a wild performance on April 15 at Toronto in which he walked a career-high seven batters, Gil spent much of the following days reviewing video, looking for mechanical adjustments to improve his performance.

Yankees manager Aaron Boone said that Gil seemed more mindful of his delivery with “square shoulders” as he showcased sharper command, permitting just two hits and three free passes over 5 2/3 innings.

Gil’s blemishes came on two balks: the run-scoring one that permitted José Caballero to dance home in the third inning, when he stepped to the side instead of stepping back, and another in the fourth when he failed to stop and moved Amed Rosario up 90 feet from first base.

Both times, Gil responded by striking out the next batter.

“There’s been a couple of times early in the season here where I feel like things that have gone on in the game have affected Luis a little bit emotionally,” Boone said. “My message to him is, ‘You can process something and take something in, but we’ve got to move on to the next pitch.’”

It was just the 11th Major League start for the 25-year-old Gil, whose previous win in “The Show” came in his Aug. 3, 2021 debut against the Orioles. Gil tore his ulnar collateral ligament while pitching for Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre on May 18, 2022, and underwent Tommy John surgery six days later.

The Yankees initially planned to have Gil begin this season in Triple-A. But an injury to Gerrit Cole prompted them to reconsider those plans, with Boone remarking that Gil’s better-than-expected performance in the spring “kicked the door in.”

“Throughout that [rehab] time, you stay positive. You keep your head up,” Gil said. “You keep doing all the work, and you’re looking for it to pay off, with positive thoughts all around. Thank God, here I am today.”

After Anthony Rizzo knocked in the game’s first run with a first-inning single, New York sent nine batters to the plate in the fifth, taking advantage after Aaron Civale walked three consecutive batters. Verdugo hammered the first pitch he saw from Civale into right-center field to bring in two runs.

“I’m really thinking, ‘Get a strike, get something over the plate and put a good swing on it,’” Verdugo said. “He just left one over.”

Oswaldo Cabrera and Jose Trevino followed suit with run-scoring singles, also on the first pitches of their at-bats.

“I saw what they were doing and I thought, ‘I’m going to do it too,’” Cabrera said.

Dennis Santana permitted three runs in the eighth, making it a one-run game and a save situation for Victor González, who got the ninth-inning call with closer Clay Holmes having pitched twice this weekend.

In a sequence that Boone said he saw playing out in “slow motion,” González recorded the final out by attempting to glove a comebacker from pinch-hitter Harold Ramírez that ticked toward the right side of the infield.

González flipped underhand to Rizzo to nab Ramírez, who slid headfirst into the bag.

“Usually, I never try to catch a ball like that,” González said through an interpreter. “Today it was the way I reacted. I knew I had enough time; it was just a matter of sticking with it and finishing there. We were able to do that and get the victory.”