“Love someone who has the confidence" - Yankees starter Marcus Stroman thinks Luis Gil’s neck tattoo speaks volumes about teammate’s pitching style
Virtually nobody could have predicted that Luis Gil would have emerged as the best pitcher on MLB's first-placed team this season. However, the Yankees pitcher has been able to get it done ever since he unexpectedly took over for an ailing Gerrit Cole three months ago.
Now 9-1, Gil's 2.03 ERA leads all AL starters. Freshly 26, Gil has alos posted a WHIP figure of 0.975 this season, and his 4.4 home runs per nine innings figure leads the entirety of MLB.
"Luis Gil has FOURTEEN STRIKEOUTS through six innings (via @Yankees)" - B/R Walk-Off
In a recent piece for ClutchPoints, writer Scotty White profiled the impact that Luis Gil's superlative pitching is having on the morale of the first-placed New York Yankees. One of Gil's teammates, pitcher Marcus Stroman, believes that a certain physical trait that they share speaks volumes about Gil's confience on the mound.
Referencing his teammate's neck tattoo that reads "GOD BLESS ME", Stroman complimented Gil. According to Stroman, who has several neck tattoos of his own, the bold style of Gil is something to be valued:
“I love someone who has the confidence to get a neck tat. I think a lot of people in society are like, ‘Oh, a neck tat, you can’t get a neck tat.’ But I just feel like that speaks to the confidence in someone because it’s always so frowned upon" - Marcus Stroman
Stroman, 33, signed with the Yankees this offseason after opting out of his three-year deal with the Chicago Cubs. Now 6-3 with a 3.08 ERA this season, Stroman is right up beside Gil in terms of the quantity of solid performances on the mound for the Yankees this season.
Luis Gil's confience on the mound inspires his entire team to be better
On June 11, Luis Gil went 5.2 scoreless innings against the Kansas City Royals to earn his ninth win of the season. Though he only garnered one strikeout, each failed batter seemed to feed into the star's confidence even more. In the same piece for Clutch Points, White asked Yankees manager Aaron Boone about Gil's 2024 season:
"To see him hunger to get better and learn from everything that he’s gone through, build a really solid routine — that’s what’s been really satisfying about Luis.”
Still only 25 with a lot of confidence and even more time in his career, it will be exciting to see where and what Gil does next.