From gaffes to great, a full day for Torres
Gleyber Torres’ ceiling appears to keep growing on both sides of the ball — but the 21-year-old has much to learn on the path to countless highlights ahead. Torres, who is batting .317 since debuting on April 22, made two outstanding defensive plays in Monday’s 5-1 loss to the Astros, though his pair of game-changing miscues largely contributed to the Yankees’ fourth loss in their past six games. Torres’ biggest mistake came in the bottom of the second inning, with the Astros leading 3-0. After Torres singled off Justin Verlander, Aaron Hicks was hit by a pitch, and the Yankees had the tying run at the plate in hot-hitting Miguel Andujar. But after Verlander threw a ball to open the at-bat, he spun, and picked off Torres at second base to end the inning.
“He was probably a little aggressive with the secondary [lead] and didn’t con- sider that enough,” manager Aaron Boone said. “Gleyber’s such a smart player. There’s moments that happen within the course of a game that are always teaching moments, not always [something] needs to be said. I’m confident he’ll learn from that, he’ll catalog that and grow from it.”
Against the best pitcher in baseball this season, Torres immediately understood the weight of his mistake.
“I know it’s bad,” said Torres, who went 1-for-4. “It’s a good time for the team to get the first runs of the game. He picked me [off ]. I feel super bad for that. We’ll prepare and be better.”
On a day in which he was p ro mote d to his highest spot in the order this season (f ifth), Torres had another issue at the start of the fourth inning.
The second baseman collected a soft ground ball hit by Yuli Gurriel, but nonchalantly threw it wide of f irst, and was charged with his fifth error of the season. Two batters later, Gurriel scored on an Evan Gattis single.
“Sometimes we put too [much] confidence on a play,” Torres said. “I [had] too [much] confidence and I threw [it] bad.”
Though the Yankees wouldn’t recover from the early deficit, Torres prevented it from getting worse.
With two on and two out in the sixth inning, Torres made a spectacular over-the-shoulder catch — his second of the game — on a J.D. Davis bloop into shallow center, which resulted in Torres tumbling to the ground.
“What I do love about him, he plays the game with so much confidence, he’s not affected ,” Boone said. “Because he plays the game with such confidence and with such ease, sometimes when it’s really easy you can not necessarily finish the play. … [But] I never worry about him as far as whatever’s gone on in the game, whatever’s happened ... [one] play leaking into the next one.”