Believe it or Not, Gleyber Torres Has Actually Been Producing in Leadoff Spot

The rollercoaster ride never relents with the Yankees - up one night, down the next. On the heels of a nice win Monday, they were back to being inept in every way Tuesday and lost yet another game to a sub-.500 team. However, Gleyber Torres reached base twice from the leadoff spot, and that has become pleasantly common the last couple weeks. Lets get to it.

Aug. 27: Nationals 4, Yankees 2

I know we’re all ready to launch Gleyber Torres to the sun when 2024 ends and he becomes a free agent. And I know Tuesday night he had a chance to be a hero in the ninth inning at the end of a miserable night for the Yankees, but at the plate as the potential go-ahead run with two outs and two men on, he flied out to the warning track in right to end a game the Yankees had no business winning.

But I’m going to take a different tack here and not rag on him for that because we have to recognize that over the last little while, he’s actually been pretty useful on offense. Seriously, he has.

After starting the season in the leadoff spot and failing spectacularly in that role, Torres did not bat No. 1 from April 10 through July 23. When Anthony Volpe and then Alex Verdugo could not produce at the top, Aaron Boone gave Torres five chances between July 24 and Aug. 8 but the results were again middling as he went 6-for-24, drew just one walk and scored only two runs as the Yankees went 2-3 in those games.

Not that this is anything new because the Yankees haven’t had a productive leadoff hitter since the 2020 COVID year when DJ LeMahieu won the MLB batting title with a .364 average. Yeah, remember those days when LeMahieu could actually hit?

Out of options, Boone threw another blindfolded dart, it landed on Torres on Aug. 16, and ever since that day something has been clicking and Torres has emerged from his early season lethargy.

Monday night he led off for the 10th straight game and he homered to start the Yankees on their way to a victory over the Nationals, and he later had a single for a 2-for-5 night. It was the sixth straight game that Torres reached base in his first at bat.

That streak ended Tuesday, but he did reach base twice in five trips with a single and a walk, and in the 11 games since going back to leadoff he’s 13-for-42 with nine walks and nine runs scored, and his slash line is .310/.431/.500 for an OPS of .931.

“I think he’s just a really good hitter that’s kind of had some struggles this year,” Boone said. “For the better part of over a month, more consistent at-bats. I think all year he’s done a good job with the strike zone, even when he’s had some struggles. A lot of long at-bats - he’s continuing to do that.”

Boone is usually full of shit with his incessant over-praising of players, but in this case he’s right. If you take it back to July 13 when Torres had just his second three-hit game of the year, during that stretch of 35 games he’s slashing .288/.365/.417 for a .782 OPS, much of that coming in the middle of the batting order.

If Torres can continue to do this at the top and get on base in front of Juan Soto and Aaron Judge, that would be huge because it lengthens the Yankees lineup even more.

“The last, I guess, couple weeks, I feel I’ve gotten better,” said Torres, who has a 21-game on-base streak. “Just trying to put 100% into every at-bat and … try to pass the baton to the other guys behind me.”

OK, enough of the happy talk. On to the shit show that was Tuesday’s loss.

Here are my observations:

➤ Baseball is just so crazily unpredictable. How the hell can it be that Gerrit Cole gave up home runs on back-to-back pitches to two nobodies named Andres Chaparro and Jose Tena, part of a lackluster night for him, and wound up saddled with a bad loss. And on the other side, literally the worst starting pitcher in MLB, Patrick Corbin, mystified the Yankees over six scoreless, two-hit innings, yet another lefty who they couldn’t touch, and earned his fourth win in 16 decisions. And thus, it’s another loss to a team the Yankees just can’t be losing to, a costly loss because their lead in the AL East dipped to one game because the Orioles beat the Dodgers on the West Coast.

➤ Cole gave up a run in the second when Tena singled, Dylan Crews doubled for his first MLB hit, and Joey Gallo of all people drove in the run with a ground out. Then came the home runs in the fourth and that was all it took for Washington. Cole lasted only five innings and gave up six hits and a walk with seven strikeouts. It wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t good enough on a night when his teammates were horrible in every way.

➤ Corbin entered the night with the highest ERA of any qualified pitcher in MLB this season by a significant margin at 5.73. The Yankees managed no runs on two hits and two walks while whiffing six times. Just an unacceptable performance. Once they got into the bullpen they threatened in each of the last three innings, but here’s how that went. With two men on in the seventh, Alex Verdugo grounded into a double play. With the bases loaded and no outs in the eighth, Judge grounded into a crushing double play and while a run scored, that was all they got. And then in the ninth, Jazz Chisholm doubled and eventually scored on Anthony Volpe’s ground out, and after Austin Wells and Verdugo kept the game alive with singles, LeMahieu fouled out and Torres flied out to end the game.

➤ How about that bottom of the sixth when the Nationals scored their last run while Tim Mayza was pitching. Crews hit a tapper in front of the plate and Jose Trevino threw it away for an error as Crews took second. He then stole third and was safe because Chisholm missed the tag, and he scored when Gallo hit a grounder right to DJ LeMahieu who booted it. Gallo then stole second when no one covered the bag and Trevino’s throw sailed into center field, the error being charged to Torres. Chisholm also made another error, his fifth in three games, in the first inning. The Yankees’ four errors were their most in a game since Aug. 10, 2021. “On a night when we’re not scoring a bunch of runs, we gotta make sure we’re tighter than that,” Boone said, passing on another chance to just speak the truth and say something like, “Yeah, we just stunk tonight.”

➤ It was a debacle, one night after the Yankees had done so many things well in winning the opener. Just another reminder of the maddening inconsistency that this team can’t shake, and it’s why I refuse to buy into them as legitimate title contenders. “Just a couple miscues, couple errors,” Judge said. “Can’t do that if you expect to win ball games. We had a chance there at the end, a couple chances the last two innings to come back and win it and sneak that one out, but couldn’t come away with it.”

➤ Soto’s return to Washington has not gone well. He’s 0-for-8 in the first two games, and in his last 11 games he’s been brutal as his slash line is .146/.271/.390 with an OPS of .661.

➤ Anthony Rizzo played first base Tuesday in Double-A and went 2-for-2 with a home run, so his return is getting close. Look, I’m expecting nothing from Rizzo because he was doing nothing before he got hurt, so what’s going to change? However, I would hope that he’ll be better than LeMahieu and Ben Rice who have been simply atrocious.

➤ Ian Hamilton pitched in the same game Rizzo played in, his second rehab appearance with Somerset, and he threw 1.1 scoreless innings with three strikeouts. Like Rizzo, he wasn’t very good before he got hurt, but if he gets back to this 2023 form in September, that would be a nice boost.

➤ Michael Tonkin will not be heading to Triple-A Scranton after being DFA’d last weekend. The Twins claimed him off the waiver wire. “We obviously hated to lose him,” said Boone. “I’m happy for him that he got picked up, especially with a contender. Minnesota got themselves a good pitcher.” Boone being Boone. If he was actually good, which he hadn’t been for weeks, he’d still be a Yankee, right?