Yankees win fifth straight to begin season as Anthony Volpe gets four hits

PHOENIX — Juan Soto finally looked human in a Yankees uniform, not some baseball version of Superman.

No matter.

A lineup that Yankees players have said is “top to bottom” deep and dangerous more than made up for Soto’s first quiet night.

With Anthony Volpe recording his first career four-hit game and Luis Gil throwing fire for 4 2⁄3 innings, the Yankees won their fifth straight to open the season, beating the reigning National League champion Diamondbacks, 5-2, on Monday night in front of 38,608 at Chase Field.

The Yankees are 5-0 for the first time since starting the 1992 season 6-0. It was the first time in franchise history that they won each of their first five games of a season on the road.

Volpe, who spent the offseason trying to cut down on his exorbitant swing-and-miss rate from his rookie season and focused on “flattening” his bat path through the strike zone, went 4-for-4 with two doubles, two runs and an RBI.

“This is a different guy” from last year, Aaron Boone said.

Gil, 25, who had not pitched in a big-league game since May 12, 2022 — he underwent Tommy John surgery shortly after that — was terrific. The righthander, who has far better command of his slider than he did pre-surgery and has added a changeup that rival scouts praised throughout spring training, allowed one run, one hit and three walks. With his fastball sitting at 97 to 98 mph and topping out at 100, Gil struck out six.

“He’s got an electric fastball and he’s not afraid to throw it,’’ catcher Austin Wells said. “He came out firing the first batter of the game.”

Because Gil threw 63 pitches in his last start of spring training on March 22 and threw 75 pitches in a simulated game last week in Houston, Boone pulled him at 84 pitches with two outs in the fifth, one out short of the chance to earn a victory.

“He was at his count. Luis is certainly not someone I’m going to mess with coming back as we build him up,’’ Boone said. “I hated the fact it was 4 2⁄3 and he was in a good spot to get the win, but his health and getting him built properly is more important, but he did a great job setting the tone for us tonight.”

He added, “I told him later, ‘Sorry.’ ”

Said Gil, “I want to be pitching out there, but at the same time, I understand there’s a set amount of pitches that I’m under, so definitely didn’t feel bad about coming out of the game at that time. At the same time, probably next outing out there I’ll have more pitches, but I didn’t feel bad about it.”

The Yankees’ bullpen entered the night not having allowed a run in 15 1⁄3 innings to start the season. That streak ended in Luke Weaver’s third inning of the night, the seventh, when he allowed a run that made it 5-2.

Nick Burdi, flashing a 98-mph fastball, pitched a scoreless eighth. Lefty Victor Gonzalez, called on to close after Clay Holmes was used in three of the four games in Houston, allowed a one-out double in the ninth but recorded his second career save with a scoreless inning.

Soto, 9-for-17 with one homer and a 1.365 OPS in the first four games, went 0-for-3 but did walk twice.

The Yankees, who outhit the Diamondbacks 8-4, had Arizona righty Ryne Nelson out of the game by the third inning.

The Yankees didn’t score in the first but loaded the bases and forced Nelson to throw 31 pitches.

Volpe, back in the lineup after a stomach issue caused him to be a late scratch Sunday, lasered a double to right-center in the second and went to third on Wells’ long fly to right. Oswaldo Cabrera improved to 8-for-17, dumping an RBI single to right, and Gleyber Torres roped a double into the gap in left-center to make it 2-0.

Anthony Rizzo led off the third with a walk and Alex Verdugo drew a one-out walk (the Yankees walked five times and have 26 five games into the season). Volpe laced an RBI single to center to make it 3-0.

Wells’ sacrifice fly to left brought in Verdugo, and when leftfielder Lourdes Gurriel Jr.’s errant throw home couldn’t be cut off and Nelson, who retrieved the ball, made an even worse throw to third, firing the ball down the leftfield line, the double-error allowed Volpe to score all the way from first and make it 5-0.

Arizona got one back in the bottom half when Jake McCarthy led off with a double and eventually scored on Ketel Marte’s sacrifice fly. But Gil kept it there, ending the inning with a strikeout of Gurriel swinging at a 99-mph fastball.

“First of all, I have to take a moment and thank God for this opportunity after everything I went through to be able to get back, and to be here and healthy and be able to compete here, it means a lot,’’ Gil said. “For sure a lot of adrenaline out there, my first game since 2022. I felt a lot of energy out there.”