Yankees win fifth straight to begin season as Anthony Volpe gets four hits
Source: Newsday
PHOENIX -- Juan Soto finally looked human in a Yankees uniform, not some baseball version of Superman.
No matter.
A lineup that Yankees players have said is "top to bottom" deep and dangerous more than made up for Soto's first quiet night.
With Anthony Volpe leading the way with his first career four-hit game and Luis Gil throwing fire for 4 2/3 innings, the Yankees won their fifth straight to open the season, beating the Diamondbacks, 5-2, on Monday night in front of 38,608 at Chase Field.
The Yankees are 5-0 for the first time since starting the 1992 season 6-0. It was the first time in franchise history that they won each of their first five games of a season on the road.
Volpe, who spent the offseason trying to cut down on his exorbitant swing-and-miss rate from his rookie season and focused on "flattening" his bat path through the strike zone, went 4-for-4 with two doubles, two runs and an RBI.
Gil, 25, who had not pitched in a big-league game since May 12, 2022 -- having undergone Tommy John surgery shortly after that -- was terrific. The righthander, who has far better command of his slider than he did pre-surgery and has added a changeup that rival scouts praised throughout spring training, allowed one run, one hit and three walks. With his fastball sitting at 97 to 98 mph and topping out at 100, Gil struck out six.
Because Gil threw 63 pitches in his last start of spring training on March 22 and threw 75 pitches in a simulated game last week in Houston, Aaron Boone pulled him one out short of the chance of earning a victory with two outs in the fifth and Gil at 84 pitches.
The Yankees' bullpen entered the night not having allowed a run in 15 1/3 innings to start the season. That streak ended in Luke Weaver's third inning of the night, the seventh, when he allowed a run that made it 5-2.
Nick Burdi, flashing a 98-mph fastball, pitched a scoreless eighth and lefty Victor Gonzalez, called on to close after Clay Holmes was used in athree of the four games in Houston, allowed a one-out double in the ninth but recorded his second career save with a scoreless inning.
Soto, 9-for-17 with one homer and a 1.365 OPS in the first four games, went 0-for-3 but did walk twice.
The Yankees, who outhit the Diamondbacks 8-4, had Arizona righty Ryne Nelson out of the game by the third inning.
The Yankees didn't score in the first but loaded the bases and forced Nelson to throw 31 pitches.
Gil's first pitch of the night was a 97-mph fastball for a strike to Ketel Marte, though he would walk the Arizona leadoff man on nine pitches. But Gil came back to strike out Corbin Carroll swinging at a slider and induced a pop out from Lourdes Gurriel Jr. before blowing a 100-mph fastball past Christian Walker to end the 22-pitch inning.
The offense went to work.
Volpe, back in the lineup after a stomach issue caused him to be a late scratch Sunday, lasered a double to right-center. Austin Wells flied to deep right and Volpe went to third. Cabrera improved to 8-for-17 on the season, dumping an RBI single to right for a 1-0 lead. Torres roped a double into the gap in left-center to make it 2-0.
After Gil set down the Diamondbacks 1-2-3 in the bottom half -- including a strikeout of Eugenio Suarez swinging at a 98-mph fastball -- the Yankees more or less put it away in the third.
Anthony Rizzo led off with a walk and, after Giancarlo Stanton struck out, Alex Verdugo walked, giving the Yankees four to that point in the game and 25 overall five games into the season. Volpe laced an RBI single to center to make it 3-0. Austin Wells' sacrifice fly to left brought in Verdugo and when Gurriel Jr., the leftfielder, threw wildly home and Nelson, retrieving the ball, airmailed third trying for Volpe, the double-error brought in the Yankees shortstop for a 5-0 lead. The play ended Nelson's night and he was replaced by lefty Kyle Nelson (no relation).
Arizona got one back in the bottom half when Jake McCarthy led off with a double, Geraldo Perdomo followed with a walk and the former eventually scored on Marte's sacrifice fly. But Gil kept it there, ending the inning with a strikeout of Gurriel Jr. swinging at a 99-mph fastball.