‘Ro & Toe’ relish shot at spotlight
P ITTSBURGH — Youth movement? Toolsy talent?
Eh. The 2017 Yankees’ surprisingly strong start can be attributed to, as much as anything else, the Ro and Toe Show.
Chris Carter delivered one of the biggest hits of this young season, an eighth-inning, pinch-hit, tiebreaking, three-run blast to lead the Yankees to an eventual 11-5 thumping of the Pirates in a rollercoaster affair at PNC Park. Carter, the 2016 National League co-home run leader, picked up on the cheap by the Yankees shortly before spring training, ensured he will not go down as a full-fledged pinstriped bust by crushing the first pitch he saw from Felipe Rivero into the Yankees’ bullpen in leftcenter for his first round-tripper with his new club.
Yet Carter never would have received his opportunity for glory — and more to the point, the Yankees would not be loving life at 11-6 — if not for the stellar performances of their injury replacements, Austin Romine and Ronald Torreyes, the two men who stood on base went Carter went deep.
“They’ve played about as well as you can play,” Joe Girardi said of Romine and Torreyes. “They have been outstanding, both of them. They have contributed defensively, a ton offensively for this club. You can’t say enough about the work for they’ve done.”
The catcher Romine, “Ro” to the nickname-happy Girardi, contributed a pair of singles and scored the winning run after starting the eighth-inning rally by reaching on an error by Pirates second baseman Adam Frazier. In place of injured stud catcher Gary Sanchez (strained right biceps), the 28-yearold is slashing an ultra-healthy .324/.381/.459.
“I always said that if I got a chance again in the big leagues that I was going to make the most of it that I could,” Romine said. “I’m lucky here and there. I’m hitting some balls well. But it’s fun to be a part of a team like this.”
The shortstop Torreys, “Toe” to Girardi, tallied a double and three singles and, with his two RBIs giving him 13 for the season, improbably is tied with Starlin Castro (who drilled a game-tying, three-run homer in the sixth) and Aaron Judge (who added a ninth-inning insurance homer, a monster shot estimated to travel 457 feet) for the team lead. In place of regular shortstop Didi Gregorius, who strained his right shoulder for the noble cause of promoting the game globally in the World Baseball Classic (sarcasm alert), the 24year-old is slashing an impressive .296/.296/.444.
“When I find myself in a situation like that, where I have runners in scoring position, I focus on putting a good swing and bringing a run in,” Torreyes said through an interpreter. “So I hope it continues. I hope I can keep contributing to the team.”
These two guys embody the term “replacement player.” They could have been scooped up by anyone, relatively recently, for a low, low price. The Yankees designated Romine for assignment at the end of spring training in 2015 then outrighted him to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barres after the rest of the industry passed on him; he got his do-over last year after Sanchez faltered in the Grapefruit League competition to be Brian McCann’s backup. Torreyes became a Yankee via a January 2016 trade with the Dodgers, only to get designated that same month and claimed by the Angels — only for the Angels to DFA him again within a week and watch the Yankees claim him back.
Romine, speaking of the Sanchez and Gregorius injuries, said, “They’re both huge losses. … But it gives opportunities to guys in the background to step up and be part of the team. It’s what we strive for.”
Striving has led to success. Romine broke up Pirates starter Jameson Taillon’s bid for history with a fifth-inning single, the Yankees’ first knock of the day. With one out in the sixth, he singled to load the bases, and Torreyes followed by poking a flyball to right that John Jaso misplayed into the double. In the eighth, Torreys kept the two-out rally going, setting up Carter’s heroics, with a single to center field.
They will return to their bench roles if and when Sanchez and Gregorius come back. They will have left their mark and opened up future opportunities. Until then, Ro and Toe will try to keep making the Yankees go.