Yankees win as starter Luis Gil locks up Astros backed by three home runs

His previous time on the mound, Luis Gil outpitched the Orioles Corbin Burnes, a past Cy Young Award winner.

Tuesday night, Gil outpitched a three-time winner of the award, as well as a pitcher responsible for more October angst for the Yankees and their fans in the last decade than any other.

Supported by home runs from Alex Verdugo, Anthony Volpe and Giancarlo Stanton, Gil dominated the Astros and dramatically outperformed Justin Verlander in a 10-3 victory in front of 37,126 at the Stadium.

“When you have an opportunity to face guys like that, that are some of the best pitchers in the world, you have to see it as motivation to go out there and execute the plan you have,” Gil said through his translator. “But it’s a total group effort.”

It was as the Yankees (24-13), winners of four straight, outhit the skidding Astros, 13-3.

Verdugo hit a three-run homer in the first, added an RBI single in the third en route to going 3-for-5 with four RBIs. An instant fit in the clubhouse almost from Day 1 of the spring, Verdugo also made two stellar plays in left.

“Just a great all-around game,” Aaron Boone said of Verdugo.

Juan Soto went 3-for-4 and was hit by a pitch, raising his batting average to .329 and his OPS to .996. Volpe went 1-for-5 with three RBIs.

Still, the story of the night was the continued rapid-fire development of the 25-year-old Gil, who came into the spring having not pitched in a big-league game in nearly two years because of Tommy John surgery.

Tuesday night Gil allowed one hit — a homer to the second batter of the game, Kyle Tucker — one run and four walks over six innings in improving to 3-1 with a 2.92 ERA. Gil, who struck out five, capped a 1-2-3, six-pitch fifth with a strikeout of Jose Altuve with a 94-mph changeup (yes, 94).

The organization at the onset of spring training anticipated Gil providing starting pitching depth in the minors but his last three outings of the Grapefruit League season accelerated that plan and he was awarded the fifth starter job.

And though his control wasn’t always pristine Tuesday, Gil’s secondary pitches, led by a changeup he spent much of his rehab time refining, had the Astros (12-23) flailing.

Both Verdugo and Volpe separately referenced the “reactions” of the Houston hitters as being what impressed them most about Gil.

“To me, it almost looks like the fastball is like 110 mph, like it’s the hardest fastball they’ve seen,” Volpe said.

Verdugo erased the Tucker homer with a three-run bomb in the bottom of the first to make it 3-1.

Gil opened the third by retiring Jake Meyers on a lineout, then struck out Altuve, who missed badly on a slider that darted out of the zone. He walked Tucker and Yordan Alvarez but ended the inning with a swinging strikeout of Bregman on a filthy changeup.

Verdugo struck again in the bottom half with an RBI single that made it 4-1 and Volpe, who hit the ball hard his first two times up, launched a 1-and-0, 94-mph fastball to right in the fourth, his fourth homer making it 6-1.

Stanton started the bottom half by driving a first-pitch slider, the ball coming off his bat at 118.7 mph, into the Houston bullpen in left-center, his seventh homer making it 7-1.

After walking Tucker and Alvarez in the third, Gil retired 10 of the last 11 he faced.

“He’s just got a lot of weapons, he’s hard to hit,” Boone said of Gil. “On a night it wasn’t necessarily all clicking for him, it just speaks to how capable he is.”

Extra bases

Before the game, Boone said top outfield prospect Jasson Dominguez could be cleared “inside of two weeks” to start rehab games. Dominguez’s electric start to his MLB career was cut short after eight games last September because of a UCL tear that necessitated season-ending Tommy John surgery . . . Gerrit Cole (right elbow inflammation) threw another bullpen session Tuesday afternoon (he threw the first one of his rehab on Saturday) and is slated to join the club on its trip to Tampa Thursday night to continue rehabbing at the club’s minor league complex. “Still got a ways to go on it, but exciting that he’s getting back out there again,” Boone said.

There continues to be no timeline — at least, none given publicly — for Cole’s return though, from the time the elbow inflammation was diagnosed in mid-March, the organization would have signed up for a return by July 1, a date that remains a possibility.