Unforgettable:
Yankees rising star Gleyber Torres shined in the division series, driven by last season’s loss.
MINNEAPOLIS – Details of the last moments of last year’s Red Sox-Yankees playoff series might be foggy now, but Gleyber Torres remembers it all too clearly.
He made the final out, on a ground ball that halted the Yankees’ ninth-inning rally – the tying run in scoring position, the winning run on base – in Boston’s 4-3 victory.
At Yankee Stadium, the eventual World Series champion Red Sox enjoyed a raucous clinching celebration after that Game 4 of the American League Division Series.
In the home clubhouse, Torres felt the entire weight of that loss, the crushing end of an excellent rookie season for the Yankees’ second baseman.
And that loss stays with him today.
“I was the last out in that series. For sure, I (felt) really bad,” Torres said recently, mentioning that he’d been the 27th out in what seemed like – in hindsight – a completely inevitable Red Sox march to a title.
In short order, Torres chose to use those negative thoughts toward a positive gain.
“After that season, I go home and I never forget that moment,” Torres said. “I feel bad. I feel frustration.”
Early in the division series against the Twins, manager Aaron Boone and outfielder Aaron Judge spoke of the necessity to put the Twins away early.
“I feel like as a group, that’s something we’ve done really well this year – having that hunger,” Boone said. “It’s a hungry group,” ready to meet the challenge as the stakes raise.
The Yankees completed a sweep of the Twins in the bestof-five series Oct. 7, outscoring Minnesota 23-7 in the three games.
“All I’m thinking about is … all the missed opportunities from years past,” Judge said. “I don’t want that to happen again this year. I’m just going to keep doing whatever I can until we’re done playing. We’re hungry.”
In 2017, the Yankees took a 3-2 lead on the Houston Astros in the best-of-seven ALCS with three resounding wins in New York but lost the two final games of the series.
Torres, who arrived in a July 2016 trade with the Chicago Cubs, didn’t debut in the major leagues until 2018. Admittedly, he took last season’s loss to Boston all too personally, but his aim was to “just take advantage of that” feeling as a motivator for 2019.
He thought about it during his offseason preparation, used it to fuel his workouts for this chance at flipping that October script.
The idea was to “just take all the experience from last year and put it this year in my game,” said Torres, adding that he doesn’t feel any of the conventional pressure associated with postseason games.
In ways that are beyond his age (22), he’s a veteran player with a bonus degree in the postseason; that’s how quickly Torres absorbs and processes information.
Boone heard the comments by his second-year second baseman and he wasn’t surprised.
“Gleyber had a great offseason. He worked really hard, and I think, in his mind, he took a lot of pride this year in being able to post,” Boone said of Torres, who played in 144 games in another All-Star season. He has hit .275 with a .849 OPS, 62 homers and 167 RBI through his first 267 bigleague games.
“There were a couple of times where he played through some (physical) things and he would always talk to me about how he worked really hard all winter to put (himself) in a position to be there every day and to continue to build off last year.
“So I think that his focus and his concentration and his work last winter … was really good,” Boone said of both the strength training and on-field improvement. “It put him in a position, at this point in the year, to still have an impact for us.”
Torres had a pivotal two-run double that keyed the Yankees’ Game 1 victory at Yankee Stadium and homered in Game 3 in Minneapolis.
“He expects a lot with himself. He wants to be great for his team,” said Boone.
“We challenge him all the time to do little things that are going to allow him to be, not just a really good player that goes to All-Star Games, a championship-caliber player and being one of the guys that helps set the tone.
“Those are things we’ve challenged him with, and he’s lived up to it all along.”