The Yankees lost to the Mets by a score of 6-4 in their third game of the Grapefruit League schedule, as the team is clearly not interested in taking home the glorious Grapefruit League Championship.
Disheartening lack of care for such a legendary honor aside, Luis Gil took the bump for his first outing of the 2026 Spring Training season and delivered a solid performance.
Seeing a goose egg in the walks column while racking up four strikeouts in 2.2 IP, the right-hander put together a sharp performance where I walked away encouraged with where he was at mechanically at this point of the season.
Cade Winquest, who is hoping to make the bullpen out of camp, showed off a new pitch with some other notes I wanted to touch on in our latest blog on the Yankees’ Spring Training games.
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Luis Gil Looks Sharp in First Appearance of Spring Training
While Luis Gil was sitting below his average fastball velocity in his outing, hovering between 94-95 MPH for most of the day, I thought there was a lot to like about his performance.
The right-hander was aggressive in-zone, consistently attacking hitters and not having the errant misses that we’ve been accustomed to seeing especially over the last year or so.
He was in-zone 54% of the time while having a 60% First-Pitch Strike%, command is hard to judge this time of the year but this is one of the more polished performances I’ve seen him have in any pro setting.
Gil’s fastball was averaging about 1 inch more vertical movement today than it did on average last season despite throwing a bit slower, an indication that he’s getting behind the ball more consistently for backspin.
The slider had more depth and better lateral movement as well, he had a slightly different spin axis with that pitch today and wodner if he can consistently throw that sweeper shape since it could help him a ton.
The changeup was what it always is, a plus pitch with good movement that he can throw for whiffs or soft contact, overall this was a solid day for Luis Gil and I’m hoping he can build on this.
I don’t view this as a time for him to blow front office personnel away, but I do think there’s a little bit of urgency to find some composure and make progress in the strike-throwing department since he could lose his rotation spot mid-season.
Cade Winquest Showed Progress With Yankees, Still Has Some Warts
Allowing one run across 1.1 IP off of a home run to Luis Torrens, Cade Winquest was okay today and there were a lot of feelings I had about this outing that sort of contradict each other.
On one hand, I liked the way his four-seamer looked shape-wise as he averaged 16.5 inches of IVB with a low release height to create a pitch that can really excel at the top of the zone.
I expected the Yankees to improve his four-seam shape and they did, he also displayed a nice sinker that ranged from disgusting to below-average from pitch-to-pitch, and there lies the questions I had about today’s appearance.
The first thing that stood out was that the fastball velocity didn’t look the way it did in previous pro seasons, but that could just be chalked up to it being February and Winquest still building up.
What created some more head-scratching for me was how wildly his sinker changed from pitch to pitch, he’d throw a 93 MPH dead-zone sinker like the one crushed to center then rip a 95 MPH sinker with nearly 2 feet of run.
Cade Winquest made a lot of exciting changes that we saw today in action, but he needs to get the fastball back to that ~96 MPH range and find more shape consistency.
If those two things click during the Grapefruit League…I’m going to feel very vindicated in my faith that he will be a productive weapon for the 2026 Yankees.
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