HOUSTON – As good as the Yankees looked during their eight-game winning streak, they ended it on Sunday with an all-around stinker.
Deep in the heart of Texas, Luis Gil got deep-sixed while his previously red-hot offense did not come alive until the ninth inning, resulting in a 7-4 loss to the Astros at Daikin Park.
Gil, who only has a few more guaranteed starts in the big leagues before he is likely to be the odd man out when Carlos Rodón returns from the injured list, did not do much to help his case on Sunday.
The right-hander gave up six runs across four-plus innings with plenty of loud contact, including a pair of two-run homers that put the Yankees (18-10) in an early hole.
Equally as troubling as the hard contact was the lack of swing-and-miss. Gil did not record a single whiff on the 22 four-seam fastballs the Astros (11-18) swung at, and only generated three whiffs overall on the 34 swings they took.
Gil’s clunker snapped a strong stretch of starting pitching that had fueled the Yankees’ winning streak. The six runs he allowed nearly matched the amount of earned runs (seven) the Yankees had allowed in their last eight starts combined.
Aaron Judge, meanwhile, provided the only offense in seven innings against Astros starter Spencer Arrighetti, who allowed just three hits. On his 34th birthday, Judge crushed a solo home run, his 10th of the year, to get the Yankees on the board in the sixth inning, cutting the deficit to 7-1.
The Yankees mounted a two-out rally in the top of the ninth, with RBI doubles from Paul Goldschmidt and J.C. Escarra and an RBI single from Ryan McMahon. But it proved to be too little, too late.
Gil’s day got off to an inauspicious start, when he walked leadoff hitter Carlos Correa on four pitchers. Two outs later, he threw a 3-2 changeup down the middle to Christian Walker, who clobbered it for a two-run shot that came off the bat at 109.8 mph.
In the third inning, Gil got two quick outs before Yordan Alvarez smoked a single and Isaac Paredes followed by crushing a 95 mph sinker off the left-field foul pole for another two-run homer that made it 4-0.
Then in the fifth, Gil gave up a walk and a double to the first two batters, at which point Aaron Boone decided he had seen enough and went to the bullpen.
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Paul Blackburn entered and immediately fell behind 3-0 to Paredes, who got the green light and roped an RBI single.
Walker followed with a double to the gap that drove in two more runs for the 7-0 lead.
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