TAMPA — As far as spring training games go, Friday was an important one for Luis Gil, given some of the questions lingering around him this camp.
The Yankees right-hander came out and answered them emphatically.
Gil looked more dominant than he has all spring, mowing down the Orioles across five shutout innings in which he struck out seven and showed improved life on his fastball, turning back the clock to his AL Rookie of the Year form.
“That was 2024 Luis Gil right there,” a smiling Aaron Boone said after a 3-1 win at Steinbrenner Field. “There’s been incremental improvements, slowly but surely, through spring. But we hadn’t seen that yet. Hopefully that’s a sign of things to come for him, because that’s what he’s capable of.”
Gil came out firing from the start and averaged 96.8 mph on his fastball — up over 1 mph from the rest of his starts this spring and up 1.5 mph from 2025 — while topping out at 98.8 mph on a strikeout in the third inning.
The uptick in velocity and stuff was thanks in part to Gil spending his bullpen session Wednesday working on his release point — getting it higher than he had been this spring — to have better deception, which paid immediate dividends.
He had struggled to get swing-and-miss on his fastball in recent starts — and for much of last season after coming back from a lat injury — but rediscovered some of it Friday, generating five whiffs on 23 swings against the pitch.
“Right now, I feel as close as I’ve been [to the 2024 version] and I feel like I’m ready for a long season right now,” Gil said through an interpreter
The Yankees will have to decide what the next step is for Gil, who also flashed a new sinker that he has been working on.
The club is still determining whether it will start the season in a four- or five-man rotation, having the flexibility to do the former because of multiple off-days in the first two weeks.
If the Yankees go with four starters, Gil or Ryan Weathers would appear to be the odd man out, either in a piggyback role or potentially optioned to Triple-A for the first two weeks of the season.
But Gil made a strong last impression.
“I’ve been wanting to see that,” Boone said. “He had their respect with the fastball, which allows the other stuff to play better.”
