TORRES IS A SHO OFF!
The American League’s two meteorically rising Rookie of the Year candidates crossed paths for the first time and exchanged pleasantries when Shohei Ohtani arrived at second base in the fourth inning on Friday night.
The Babe Ruth of Japan finally made it to the House that Succeeded the One that Ruth Built, but the new Stadium rapidly has become the home that belongs to Ohtani’s freshman counterpart, Gleyber Torres, as much as it does with the other homegrown budding superstars that have preceded his arrival over the past few years.
The Yankees’ 21-year-old breakout rookie outshined Ohtani, the Angels’ twoway phenom, in Friday’s series opener against the Angels, going deep for a fourth straight game to account for the go-ahead run in the seventh inning of the Bombers’ 2-1 victory.
While Ohtani has invoked comparisons to Ruth for the rare double of excelling both on the mound and at the plate, Torres continues to make instant history of his own. This time he became the youngest rookie in AL history to homer in four consecutive games and the fourth-youngest ever to do so in MLB annals behind some pretty good company: Miguel Cabrera, Andruw Jones and Albert Pujols.
“I feel proud for that, but I feel great because I helped the team and we win. That’s the most important,” Torres said. “I’m not particularly a home-run guy, I’m a contact guy, but I’m feeling pretty good right now.”
Pretty good? Since Torres was recalled from Triple-A Scranton on April 22, he has amassed staggering numbers, batting .333 with a team-best 1.039 OPS. His nine homers in 96 at-bats all have come over the past 16 games, including six in the last half-dozen.
Still, Ohtani’s presence this weekend serves as a gentle reminder of what might have been, even for a team with an endless embarrassment of riches like the Yankees.
As well as just about everything has unfolded for the Yanks through the first two months of the 2018 season, it’s easy to forget now that Plan A last winter was not acquiring Giancarlo Stanton.
It was to land Ohtani, who has taken American baseball by storm by thriving both as a semi-regular pitcher and batter for the Halos in a manner no one has pulled off since the guy without the halo, The Babe, once did for the Boston Red Sox before he was sold to the Yankees a full century ago. This, mind you, is nothing against Stanton, whose batting average has hovered lately around .260 and whose 11 home runs leave him one binge away from the top of the charts in the American League. And all from the center of a loaded lineup that leads all of baseball with 80 homers, including 22 over the past six games.
When all is said and done, Stanton’s power numbers will be there, too, even if they don’t approach his cartoonish stats (59 homers) from last year’s NL MVP finish with Miami.
Ohtani, in a big way as it turns out, still would have been the better fit for the Yankees’ overall needs, especially when you consider the predictable leaks their starting staff has sprung over the last few weeks — aside from Friday’s starter Luis Severino, that is — leaving Cashman almost certainly facing trading for another rotation upgrade this summer.
Never mind the unlimited marketing possibilities of what a dynamic and unique star such as Ohtani would bring in New York. His mound performances have been eye-popping, with 100-mph heat and a legitimate wipeout slider leading to a 4-1 mark with a 3.35 ERA and 52 strikeouts in 40.2 innings over seven starts.
The lefty-swinging slugger also entered the weekend with six homers and a .991 OPS over his first 104 plate appearances, before going 0-for-3 with a walk – including a groundout with the tying run at second base in a lefty-lefty duel against Aroldis Chapman in the eighth — as the Angels’ designated hitter in the series opener.
“This field has a lot of history,” Ohtani said afterward through his interpreter, “and anyone that plays baseball would like to play here one day.” Well, not everyone, of course. Notably, an Angels media-relations staffer cut off questions following the game regarding Ohtani’s decision to not consider the Yankees — without even granting them a pitch meeting — as a free agent over the winter, saying he hasn’t answered such questions about any city since spring training.
Ohtani’s scheduled start on Sunday also was pushed back, of course, which Angels manager Mike Scioscia termed “just workload management” without divulging when the rookie’s next outing would come.
I’m not ready to accuse anyone of intentionally avoiding facing the Yankees’ lineup in this homerhaven bandbox or what would’ve been a must-see matchup in the series finale with countryman Masahiro Tanaka.
After typically hearing boos throughout his Bronx debut, however, Ohtani indicated that he’d been shown the back page of Friday’s Daily News, which featured the headline “SAY IT AIN’T SHO,” and the sub-head “What are they afraid of? Angels won’t pitch Ohtani vs. Murderers’ Row 2.0.”
“I didn’t really want to see it, but I was kind of forced to,” Ohtani said with a smile.
“The booing, it’s not the first time it’s happened. I’m getting kind of used to it and shut that all out.”
That’s OK, Torres earned the headline of the day in the first game between the league’s top two rookies, in what already is shaping up as a fascinating two-man race for that coveted award.