Luis Gil allows career-high four homers in Yankees’ 9-4 loss to Pirates

The Yankees were defeated by the Pittsburgh Pirates 9-4 on Saturday afternoon in the Bronx.

Here are some takeaways…

– Saturday’s pitching matchup featured two of the Rookie of the Year candidates in each league, and while we only saw Pittsburgh’s Paul Skenes for two innings, he was dominant as always. The right-hander retired all six batters he faced and he struck out the star-studded trio of Juan Soto, Aaron Judge, and Jazz Chisholm to give him 170 on the season. He got Judge swinging on a nasty sweeper away, painted a pair of 100 mph fastballs to get both Soto and Chisholm looking, and used his heat to explode Giancarlo Stanton‘s bat on a weakly hit comebacker.

– Luis Gil, on the other hand, struggled a bit to close out the regular season as the Pirates took him deep a career-high four times on the afternoon. The young right-hander allowed six runs on six hits while walking one and striking out five across 5.2 innings of work. After three strong starts in a row, he finishes the year allowing 10 earned runs over his last two outings against the Pirates and Athletics, bringing him to a 3.50 ERA.

– Chisholm had the big blow for the Yanks offense in the early innings, getting them on the board with a solo shot in the bottom of the fifth. He had another huge opportunity two innings later as he came up representing the tying run with the bases loaded and two outs, but David Bednar easily set him down on three pitches.

Chisholm came through a few innings later with an RBI double, helping the Yanks chip even more into the Pirates lead, but it ultimately ended up not being enough. The slugger has been struggling a bit of late but finished a strong day at the plate 2-for-4 with two runs driven in.

– Judge has been scorching hot lately, but Pittsburgh’s pitching staff completely shut him down on the afternoon, as he went 0-for-5 with five strikeouts. The last of those came in the bottom of the ninth with the bases loaded and one out in a five-run game against hard-throwing former teammate Aroldis Chapman.

Game MVP: Yasmani Grandal

The veteran catcher was square in the middle of things for the Pirates, as he homered and finished 3-for-4 with three RBI on the afternoon.

Highlights

Upcoming schedule

Clarke Schmidt takes the mound against Bailey Falter as the Yankees and Pirates close out the regular season on Sunday at 3:05 p.m.