Luis Gil made his first big-league start of the 2026 season against the Tampa Bay Rays on Friday night.
Unfortunately for him, the outing didn’t feature his best stuff during a 5-3 Yankees loss at Tropicana Field.
Gil allowed three earned runs, three hits, three walks and struck out just two batters over 88 pitches in four innings of work.
Most of the damage was done by Tampa Bay’s Yandy Diaz, who drove Gil’s slider to right-center field for a two-run blast in the bottom of the first inning. In the following frame, Taylor Walls scored on a fielder’s choice for Gil’s third earned run.
The Yankees starter, however, benefitted from early run support before taking the mound thanks to some sloppy defense by the home team.
In the top of the first, Cody Bellinger’s sacrifice fly scored Aaron Judge. Judge, who stole second base on the previous play, eventually reached third after shortstop Walls missed the throw to catch the stealing slugger.
In the same inning, Rays left fielder Chandler Simpson missed the ball on Amed Rosario’s triple. The mistake, which wasn’t ruled an error, allowed Giancarlo Stanton to score easily from first base, giving the Yankees an early 2-0 lead.
But Diaz’s homer tied the game moments after and Walls’ score gave the Rays’ first lead, 3-2.
Jake Bird and Brent Headrick followed Gil with 1.1 scoreless innings, but Camilo Doval couldn’t stop the bleeding in the sixth.
Simpson’s RBI single made the score 4-2. Then, Walls scored his second run on the night on Jonathan Aranda’s groundout to second base. The runs hiked Doval’s ERA to 7.20 on the early season.
Ben Rice’s solo homer in the eighth shortened the deficit and gave the Yankees a chance to get back into the game.
In the final inning, Stanton and Rosario got on with no outs. But it went to waste as Jazz Chisholm Jr.’s fielder’s choice, Randal Grichuk’s strikeout and Trent Grisham’s pinch-hit pop fly ended the game.