Luis Gil survived for five innings in which he pitched around traffic and allowed just one run. Long at-bats, five hits and two walks ensured he could only record 15 outs.
The Yankees’ reworked bullpen finished the job.
Luke Weaver and Jake Cousins recorded the largest outs of a tense, 4-3 win over the Royals in 11 innings in The Bronx on Wednesday night.
“Bullpen was excellent,” manager Aaron Boone said after the group allowed two runs (one earned) in six strong innings.
The only earned run was charged to Clay Holmes, a former ninth-inning man who entered in the seventh and could not hold onto a one-run lead because the Royals can play small-ball.
Kyle Isbel singled, moved to second on a Tommy Pham single, to third on a fly out from Bobby Witt Jr. and scored on a sacrifice fly from Salvador Perez.
That would be the most the group would bend.
After Holmes (who had followed a scoreless frame from Tim Hill), Tommy Kahnle threw a perfect eighth inning.
Cousins got into slight trouble in the ninth, when he walked Pham with two outs to bring up Witt, but escaped that trouble by picking off Pham.
In the 10th, Cousins allowed a soft, go-ahead run — pinch-ghost-runner Dairon Blanco stole third and then scored on a wild pitch — before handing the ball to Weaver, who would not be touched in the final 1 ²/₃ innings.
A pair of strikeouts in the 11th helped strand the ghost runner, and Weaver was fired up coming off the mound.
“He’s now getting more and more used to, with the year that he’s had, being in these big moments,” Boone said of Weaver, who earned his fifth win of the season.
Gil, who escaped a bases-loaded, one-out jam in the first inning, let up just one earned run in five innings.
According to the Elias Sports Bureau, his 16 starts of one-or-zero runs allowed are tied with Russ Ford (16 starts in 1910) for the most by a Yankees rookie in franchise history.
Against a peculiar and excellent starting pitcher — All-Star Cole Ragans, a lefty whose changeup makes him particularly difficult on righty batters — the Yankees opted for a few lefty bats in a lineup that did not include Jasson Dominguez.
“The Martian,” who has gone 1-for-7 in two games since his promotion, sat for the third game, with Alex Verdugo back in left field.
Dominguez is a switch-hitter who is much stronger as a lefty batter.
In 54 plate appearances in the minors this season from the right side, he posted just a .491 OPS.
Boone slotted lefty-swinging Jazz Chisholm Jr., who had the game-winning infield single in the 11th inning, at cleanup and batted Verdugo sixth.
“I kind of wanted my lefties in there today,” Boone said. “I want to keep Dugie playing and kind of wanted to have a presence with left-handed hitters in the lineup today.”
Boone has said Dominguez will play “a lot” after being summoned Monday.
But he also has said that there will be time for Verdugo, who was a below-average hitter from May through August but has found better results in September.
After going 1-for-4 — and getting thrown out at second trying to stretch his single into a double — Verdugo is hitting .313 in nine games this month, including knocking a home run Monday shortly after Dominguez was brought to the majors.
Nestor Cortes will open the series against the Red Sox that begins Thursday, and Clarke Schmidt will follow on Friday after the two essentially split a game in the past turn in the rotation.
Boone said the Yankees soon would go to a five-man rotation, which would mean one starter gets skipped or pulled from the group.
“If we get to the playoffs, you might pull another guy out … or even two in a given scenario,” said Boone, who added he has not talked with any pitcher about working out of the bullpen.
“You’re not sure necessarily how any of them would play or not down there [in the bullpen],” he added. “Ultimately, you’re just trying to make the best decisions for the club, and we’ll have those conversations.”
Boone said “it’s cool” to have two Rookie of the Year candidates in Gil and Austin Wells.
Boone said Wells’ season has been “phenomenal.”
“He’s been outstanding, and he’s been such a key cog in our lineup in the middle of the order for the last few months, really coming into his own as a hitter,” Boone said of Wells, who knocked a game-tying sacrifice fly in the 10th inning. “All the while doing it at such a critical position where I think he’s handled himself so well behind the plate defensively.”
On Sept. 11, all Yankees uniformed personnel wore caps of the city’s first-responder agencies.
Boone, who has gone back and forth with his hat choice over the years, opted to honor the NYPD.
“Obviously just an awful day in our history, a sad day. Obviously a day so significant to our city,” Boone said. “So to be home and to be able to pay tribute to it is meaningful, and hopefully we can do just that and do our part in honoring and remembering those who lost their lives on this day.”
The Yankees, Montefiore Einstein and Fans for the Cure will host a free, pregame prostate cancer screen for ticketed fans on Thursday.
Beginning when the Stadium gates open at 5:30 p.m. and lasting through the early innings of the game, PSA blood tests will take place in private booths on the 200-Level Concourse in between the New Era Team Store and Section 223.
