Luis Gil had another magnificent start as the Yankees beat the Angels, 2-1, on Wednesday night in Los Angeles.
Here are the takeaways...
-Gil continued his spectacular rookie campaign on Wednesday by stymying the Angels offense. The young right-hander breezed through eight innings. The only mistake he had was giving up a solo shot to Logan O'Hoppe in the seventh.
Gil pitched eight innings (95 pitches/67 strikes) -- a career-high -- while giving up one run on two hits and two walks, he also struck out nine batters. The Yankees' defense behind Gil was also magnificent. Anthony Volpe and Alex Verdugo, in particular, made brilliant plays to help Gil keep his pitch count down.
-Volpe and Verdugo also helped at the plate. Verdugo hit a solo shot in the fourth and Volpe hit a triple in the seventh and reached home on an error. That was all the scoring the Yankees and Gil needed.
Volpe finished 2-for-5 and now has a hitting streak of 21 games. His line drive out to right field in the eighth was tracked down after traveling 336 feet. The drive would have been a home run at Yankee Stadium.
-It was a weird one out west and it started in the first inning. The Yankees loaded the bases with no outs when Giancarlo Stanton popped up to second baseman Zach Neto. Juan Soto stepped off second but when he tried to step back to the bag, Neto backtracked and the two collided allowing the ball to fall. The second base umpire, Vic Carapazza called Soto out on interference. Aaron Boone came out to argue and was ejected.
The Yankees would not score in the inning.
In the second, DJ LeMahieu hit a grounder toward the shortstop with men on first and second and one out. However, Anthony Rizzo ran to third and was hit in the leg by the ball. Rizzo was called out on the dead ball. Again, the Yankees would not score.
In total, the Yankees were 1-for-8 with RISP and left 11 runners on base.
-Clay Holmes, after giving up two hits to give up the lead on Tuesday night, was on the call to close it out on Wednesday. The righty didn't make it easy after giving up a leadoff single and a walk. But he got Willie Calhoun to ground into a double play and O'Hoppe to ground out to pick up the save.
-The Yankees had a total of six hits. Aside from Verdugo and Volpe's hits, Soto, LeMahieu and Rizzo picked up the other three.
Game MVP: Luis Gil
Gil had a career night, going eight innings of one-run ball. Over his last six starts, he's given up just three runs over 38.2 innings.