After leaving his last start against the Cleveland Guardians and being placed on the injured list with a lower back strain, New York Yankees breakout starter Luis Gil made his first rehab start for the Double-A Somerset Patriots, striking out six hitters and allowing three runs in 3.2 innings on Sunday.
Fellow right-hander Clarke Schmidt is rehabbing from a much more serious injury, a right lat strain sustained in late May. He will take the hill for the Triple-A Scranton Wilkes-Barre RailRiders on Monday after completely dominating the competition in Somerset in his first two outings.
The expectation is that both stars can return to the Yankees rotation this week, if they avoid setbacks along the way. So far, so good with their respective rehabs, which brings along a few burning questions for the future of the team.
With Gerrit Cole, Nestor Cortes, Carlos Rodon, Marcus Stroman, Schmidt, and Gil all healthy, what will the Yankees do? The first move has already been made: sending Will Warren to Triple-A.
The Yankees do have some options
One of the options would be running a six-man rotation. Everybody would be more rested for what’s to come in the postseason. However, since pitchers like to stick to their routines, this strategy is not usually implemented.
Cole is the staff ace and that will remain the case almost for the entire duration of his contract. Cortes and Stroman thrive on stamina, command, and pitching IP and are best suited for starting roles, while Rodon’s contract almost forces the Yankees to use him as a starter. If performance to this point was the only deciding factor, he would be the top candidate to move to a relief role but it’s highly unlikely to happen.
That leaves us with Gil and Schmidt for the time being. These things usually resolve themselves with an injury, but if nobody else gets hurt, one of them will probably go to the bullpen upon returning.
Schmidt has a 2.52 ERA in 60.2 innings starting games for a couple of months earlier in the season, while Gil is at 3.39. The latter has more impressive stuff that could play in the bullpen, and the former has experience in the role.
Only time will tell and the Yankees do have options, but the four veterans are likely staying in the rotation at this point. That makes one of the two homegrown stars a top candidate to be sent to the bullpen.
