Gleyber Torres remains the Yankees’ best first week gift

Joel Sherman

MLB

by Joel Sherman

April 5, 2023 | 7:21 p.m

Spring training brought Anthony Volpe’s team-happy story. But spring training wouldn’t be described as feeling good overall for the Yankees.

Notably, they started the season with nine players on the injured list, tied with the Dodgers for the most. The worst of it was the loss of three-fifths of their rotation (Frankie Montas, Carlos Rodon and Luis Severino) plus two key tackles (Tommy Canley and Lou Trevino) and a quarterback (Harrison Bader).

However, the Yankees have notched up two series victories and one 4-2 in the 2023 season, showing talent and depth hitting punches.

Gerrit Cole, in particular, elevated the shorthanded rotation with two ace runs, including riding a fastball to limit the Phillies to one run in 6 1 innings in Wednesday’s 4-2 victory.

The bullpen yielded only four runs in 23 ⁄ innings (1.52 ERA) even as Michael King tried to rediscover his personal best. The Crew has benefited from a defense that took three steps forward last season and looks like it’s not holding back in 2023.

And the top of the Yankee lineup, in particular, was strong with DJ LeMahieu, Aaron Judge, and Anthony Rizzo. Giancarlo Stanton has a couple of reptiles, including one that NORAD may still be tracking.

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But the best gift of the first week for the Yankees was how good Gleyber Torres was. As Cole said of the second baseman, “He kind of does it all.” In the rubber game against the Phillies, Torres again batted from a road down into the count against the pitcher he previously dominated (Aaron Nola) to lead off two RBI singles. He stole two more bases.

“He looks really good to me,” Phillies manager Rob Thompson said. “Really, he looked good all through spring training (Phillies and Yankees play mostly because of the proximity between Clearwater and Tampa).”

There was doubt as to whether Torres would make it to the spring as a Yankee—or complete it once he did. He followed up two lackluster seasons (2020-21) with a good, but not amazing, 2022. The Yankees had weighed their deadline trades over last season and again in the winter since they looked saturated on replacements.

Torres decided to play Winter Ball in his native Venezuela with the goal of working on it: “Don’t hit too much.” In 2023, Torres rebounded in 22.6 percent of his plate appearances, the most since he was a rookie while hitting a career-low 6.8 percent of the time. He has six walks and two strikeouts to date, which prompts Aaron Boone to say, “Every single player at bat has been very competitive.”

That was exemplified on Wednesday, when it was a surprise even to see him in the lineup. Stanton was 5-for-16 with two teammates off NOLA while Torres was hitless on nine hits with six hits. But with Stanton in right field Tuesday night followed by a day game, Boone wanted to give his hitter a full day. In addition, Boone said,[Torres] He’s in a good place and he’s as good as anyone with a chance against a good bowler.”

With two outs in the first and a judge on first, Torres fell behind Nola 0-2, took a boundary pitch that the judge stole, took another boundary pitch to make it 2-2, stayed alive with an emergency breakout on the offense and then broke his bat and threw an RBI single to left field.

After lining up in fourth place, Torres again came two laps down in sixth and again lost behind Nola 0-2 with LeMahieu second. He hit two errors in the field and then hit an RBI single to center. In the eighth, Torres doubled leadoff to bring his batting average to . 421 before stealing his fifth MLB base.

Boone talked about maturity in Torres’ core games (he hit halfway to a total of 10 steals last year). But in fact his whole game looks much sharper. Torres is only 26 and he’s at least talking about using the entire field (when he’s at his best) and not being happy. He insists that this has nothing to do with the desire to prove himself through trade rumors that dragged on until opening day.

“I just want to be here for a long time,” said Torres. “I feel at home here.”

Torres has been instrumental in helping the Yankees not get out of the gate after all the injuries like, say, the NL Champion Phillies, who are now 1-5. He either tied for or led the Yankees in hits, homers, RBIs, steals, walks, average and OPS. It’s only one week, but it’s been a week to emphasize how talented Torres is and what he can be.

“Hopefully we’ll see a guy who’s just entering the pinnacle of his career,” Boone said.