Gleyber Torres

New York Yankees Smack Seven Home Runs to Beat Orioles

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The New York Yankees came out swinging on a sunny Sunday in the DMV, hitting seven home runs to beat the Orioles 15-3.

Scary Gary

Gary Sanchez led the New York Yankees by smacking three home runs, while just missing a fourth in the final inning. Two of his long balls came off a fastball, one first pitch, and the third was off a slider.

Clint Frazier built off of Saturday’s game by going 4-for-5 with two home runs and an RBI single. Gleyber Torres went 2-for-5 with a home run, and Austin Romine mashed a home run in the ninth.

New Yankee Giovanny Urshela added an RBI while going 2-for-3 as well as playing a good third base.

The Yankees accumulated 15 hits while drawing nine walks during the game, with Gardner drawing three. Aaron Judge went 0-for-4, but didn’t strikeout at all.

Luke Voit went 1-for-5, and despite him having a .182 average, he has reached safely in all but two games thus far.

Dominant Domingo

Domingo German was dominant on Sunday in possibly his best start yet. He pitched 6+ innings, allowing two hits and two runs. German actually had a no-hitter going through 5 1/3 innings. In the seventh inning, he gave up a hit and a walk before he was pulled.

Once pulled, Steven Tarpley came in and allowed both runs to score, as well as one of his own runs as he struggled to make it through the seventh.

Luis Cessa came in for the eighth and ninth, giving up just one hit. Cessa is looking better and better each time out, and we are finally starting to see why Brian Cashman thinks so highly of him.

Speaking of Brian Cashman, the Yankees won their 2,000th game with Cashman as the GM. What an accomplishment for one of the best general managers in all of sports.

The Yankees now travel down to Houston to take on the Astros in a three game series. Masahiro Tanaka gets the ball for the Yankees against Houston ace Justin Verlander. First pitch is set at 7:00PM (ET) on ESPN, Watch ESPN, YES Network, and FOX Sports Go.

New York Yankees Finally Put Together Some Offense in Win Over Baltimore

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New York Yankees, Gleyber Torres

Just four days ago, the New York Yankees finished dropping a three game series against the Orioles at home. Now on the road, the Yankees finally pieced together some offense and beat the Orioles by a score of 8-4.

Gleyber Torres led the way

Gleyber Torres put together a game he won’t forget. Torres went 4-for-4 with two dingers and four ribbies.

His first time up, he roped a 1-1 splitter to left field and gone for a solo homer. His next time up, he cracked a double.

The third time he came to the plate, the Yankees were trailing 4-2 in the sixth inning, shortly after catcher Gary Sanchez had a homer himself. Torres took an 0-2 fastball to left for a three run home run to give the Yankees a 5-4 lead. Torres also had a single in the eighth, and if he had another plate appearance, he would need just a triple for the cycle.

In the ninth inning, first baseman Luke Voit popped a 1-2 sinker into the seats for a three-run bomb, putting the Yankees up 8-4 to seal the deal.

Something that is worrisome about the game is the fact that Aaron Judge went 0-for-5 with four strikeouts. He isn’t getting a ton of friendly calls behind the plate, but nonetheless he shouldn’t be striking out as much as he has been. Like we said yesterday, it’s all about situational hitting.

Big Maple’s first Yankee win

Getting a no decision in his first Yankee game, James “Big Maple” Paxton picked up his first Yankee win on Thursday against the Orioles.

Paxton pitched 5 1/3 innings while giving up four runs on eight hits while striking out nine and walking two. Paxton threw 99 pitches and threw first pitch strikes to 14 of his 25 batters. He got eight of his nine strikeouts on variations of his fastball, and was hitting 96 MPH consistently on the radar gun with the four-seam.

Once Paxton was finished, Tommy Kahnle came in for 1 2/3 scoreless innings of relief, followed by Zack Britton and Aroldis Chapman with scoreless innings to close it out.

Reminder: We’re only seven games into the season. The Yankees are 3-4, but the Astros (who we play next) are 2-5 and the Red Sox are 2-6. Plus, the Cubs are also off to a 1-4 start. Those four teams area handful of the World Series favorites.

Fans just need to patient. The Yankees will heal, and they will win games.

The Yankees actually have Friday off with the whole home opener, next day off thingy. So the Yankees and the O’s finish off this three game series on Saturday and Sunday.

Saturday’s game will be at 7:05PM on YES Network and Fox Sports Go. MASN may be available dependent on where you live and which TV provider you have, and that is another way to watch.

JA Happ gets the ball for the Yankees against the Orioles’ Dylan Bundy. That will be a rematch of this past Sunday at Yankee Stadium.

 

The New York Yankees Beat The Tigers as Gardner and Sanchez Homer

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New York Yankees, Gary Sanchez

In a low scoring affair, New York Yankees starting pitcher Domingo German threw five solid innings and Gary Sanchez and Brett Gardner each hit solo home runs to beat the Detroit Tigers by a score of 3-1.

Seven combined hits

The Tigers and the Yankees combined for just seven hits all game, and just two came from the Tigers. Both of them happened to come off the bat of Jordy Mercer, who went 2-of-4.

The Yankees had five hits, two of which left the yard. Sanchez and Gardner each had solo shots, and Gardner also added a single in the first.

Greg Bird had a single to left field, but Tigers outfielder Christin Stewart bobbled it and Luke Voit put the wheels on and scored from first after a walk in the third inning.

Judge doubled in the seventh inning, but was stranded there, unable to build on the lead.

Aroldis Chapman came in to lock it down in the ninth, pitching a 1-2-3 inning with a strikeout to end it.

The Yankees four big relievers that are healthy right now pitched on Monday, and each did a great job. Chad Green, Zack Britton, Adam Ottavino, and Aroldis Chapman were each scoreless in one inning of work, and Britton was the only one that allowed a hit.

German did what was asked of him

Domingo German went out there on Monday with relatively low expectations, but pitched a solid game. In five innings, he only gave up a hit and a run, the run being charged on another Gary Sanchez throwing error. It did look like Gleyber Torres just missed the catch and Sanchez was just stuck with the error, so it’s not really his fault.

German only threw 77 pitches, but struck out seven while throwing first-pitch strikes 62 percent of the time. He got three of his seven strikeouts on curveballs, two of his seven on sliders, and two of his seven on fastballs. So basically, there was a lot that was working for German.

Though his pitches worked well, his accuracy and composure were poor. He walked five batters on Monday, and a 7:5 strikeout to walk ratio is really bad. He needs to keep practicing his accuracy and find more strategies with Gary Sanchez to get the ball to spots he can hit and the batters can’t.

Game two of the series against the Tigers continues on Tuesday at 6:35PM on YES Network and Fox Sports Go.

Masahiro Tanaka is scheduled to make his second start of the season, while Jordan Zimmerman will do the same for Detroit. Zimmerman was dominant last time out against the Blue Jays, allowing just one hit in seven innings.

 

 

Yankees can’t recover from Happ’s poor start in another loss to Orioles

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New York Yankees, J.A. Happ

JA Happ gave up a three run homerun to Orioles third baseman Renato Nunez in the first inning, and the Yankees weren’t able to recover as they dropped the rubber match to the Orioles, 7-5.

Happ’s struggles

In his first start of the season, JA Happ did not come out with his best stuff. After more than a three hour rain delay, Happ opened the game by striking out Jonathan Villar. It spiraled downward after that.

Dwight Smith Jr. hit a double to right-center field, then Trey Mancini hit a dumb little chopper down the third base line that Andujar couldn’t get to in time, putting runners on the corners.

Then, Nunez crushed a 2-2 fastball into the bleachers in left field, giving the Orioles a 3-0 lead.

After a 1-2-3 second inning, Trey Mancini launched another fastball, this time into monument park to give Baltimore a 4-0 lead.

Happ worked a 1-2-3 fourth, but the Yankees decided to pull him and put in long reliever Luis Cessa, who gave up one earned run in 3 1/3 innings.

Happ just couldn’t throw the fastball well on Sunday. Both home runs came from it, as well as the double in the first inning by Smith Jr. Happ struck out three while issuing just one walk in his four innings of work, throwing 75 pitches.

Hitting like it’s still 2018

It may be a new season, but the Yankees offensive tendencies are just the same. Too many chased pitches while having a poor average with runners in scoring position. The Yankees were 2-of-12 with runners in scoring position on Sunday, Judge knocking in two on a single in the fourth, and a LeMahieu RBI single in the ninth.

The Yankees were down 7-4 going to the bottom of the ninth after Tommy Kahnle walked the bases loaded, but managed to work out of it.

Bird walked and then Gleyber Torres just inched out an infield single before LeMahieu had his RBI single. Troy Tulowitzki pinch-hit for Brett Gardner, but struck out on a 1-2 slider that he check-swung at.

14 of the Yankees 27 outs were strikeouts, but four of them came from Judge and three came from Sanchez. However, in addition to Judge’s RBI single, Sanchez went yard for the first time in 2019, lining a 1-2 change-up down the left field line in the seventh.

The Yankees will now take on the Detroit Tigers in a three game series to wrap-up a six game homestand. The Tigers split a four game series with the Toronto Blue Jays to open their season. Tyson Ross is expected to start for the Tigers, while the Yankees are expected to have a “bullpen game”. Domingo German is expected to pitch a few innings for the Yankees, but it is unknown if he will be the starter.

Game time is at 6:35PM on YES Network and Fox Sports Go.

Andujar with missed opportunities as Yankees drop first game of season

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New York Yankees, Miguel Andujar

In his first start as a Yankee, southpaw James Paxton pitched well, giving up two runs (one earned) off of four hits with five strikeouts. However, he was credited with a loss as the Yankees couldn’t get much going on offense, dropping the second game against the Orioles by a score of 5 to 3.

Despite having 10 hits, the Yankees only managed to score three runs while going 3-of-9 with runners in scoring position. Their defense sure didn’t help any, having three errors on the game.

The little offense they had:

In the fourth inning, DJ LeMahieu punched one up the middle, barely strong enough to get through, scoring Gleyber Torres.

In the sixth inning, the Orioles put up two runs off a single by Dwight Smith and a throwing error by Gary Sanchez on a double steal attempt. With runners on first and second, Sanchez threw to second on the steal attempt. The throw was in plenty of time, just off target. This would knock Paxton out of the game.

An inning later, Baltimore got one more, this time off of Chad Green. Rio Ruiz doubled, then later scored off a single by Jesus Sucre. Sucre led the Orioles, going 3-for-4 with three RBIs.

In the ninth inning, Yankee reliever Jonathan Holder made a mess, starting after an error by DJ LeMahieu. With runners on the corners with one out, Sucre knocked one down the left field line, stopping at second and clearing the bases while making the score 5 to 1.

The Yankees sure tried to come back in the bottom of the ninth. Troy Tulowitzki led off with an opposite field home run, then LeMahieu followed with a double. Gardner hit a hard liner to center that was caught for the first out, however Aaron Judge kept it going with a hard single. After a full count strikeout by Giancarlo Stanton, Luke Voit hit a high fly ball that barely dropped in with the outfield playing back. That scored a run making it 5 to 3, but Miguel Andujar struck out on a 1-2 slider to end the game.

Andujar ruined their two biggest opportunities

Way back in the first inning, Baltimore starting pitcher Nate Karns was in no mood to deal with the big boys. After Gardner was retired to start the inning, Karns walked Judge, Stanton, and Voit to load the bases. After taking a low fastball for a ball, Andujar hit it back to Karns who threw it to Sucre behind the plate, then Trey Mancini at first for a 1-2-3 double-play.

Now in the ninth inning, the Yankees had Judge on third and Voit on first with Andujar up to bat. After swinging at a 95 MPH fastball for strike one, Oriole reliever Mike Wright threw three straight sliders. Andujar laid off the first one but swung at the next two to end the game.

Andujar finished 1-for-5 with two strikeouts on the afternoon.

The Yankees finish the series with the Orioles on Sunday afternoon at 1:05PM in the Bronx. The game will be televised on YES Network and Fox Sports Go.

 

New York Yankees: Can Gleyber Torres and Miguel Andujar avoid the “sophomore slump”?

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New York Yankees, Gleyber Toress, Miguel Andujar

In 2018, New York Yankees youth products Gleyber Torres and Miguel Andujar burst out into the scene in New York with Tyler Wade struggling and newly acquired Brandon Drury injured.

Once they came, they made immediate impacts including multiple walk-off hits and big home-runs. Both players had WAR’s over 2.0. Many baseball fans always worry about the dreaded “sophomore slump” that many players go through after a successful first season in the big leagues.

With Didi Gregorius out with an injury, the Yankees are relying on Torres and Andujar to pick up the slack on both the offensive and defensive end.

So many extra-base hits for the Yankees:

Combined between Torres and Andujar, the two had a total of 95 extra-base hits last season. Miguel Andujar brought more power between the two, but Torres could put one out or get a double when he needed to.  In 2018, Andujar tied the record for most doubles by a rookie in the American League with 47.

As he continued to go through the season, people began to compare him to Manny Machado who early in his career had a lot of doubles, and as he developed he turned them into home runs.

Machado had 51 doubles in his first full season. His first time up was long enough to count him as a rookie, so if he was a rookie in 2013 when he had all of those doubles, Andujar wouldn’t have a share of the rookie record. The Yankees are hoping that Andujar put enough muscle onto his body this winter to do the same thing Machado did with his hitting.

Fielding was a weakness:

Once the end of last season rolled around, Andujar had the worst third base fielding in the MLB, with his fielding percentage less than 95 percent. His glove wasn’t the issue, most of the mistakes he made were just throwing and judgment errors, including his baseball IQ. Andujar has been working hard during the winter to improve his fielding so he can continue to have a starting spot.

Last year at times, Andujar would be removed late from the game and replaced with Neil Walker or Ronald Torreyes. With both players gone, he doesn’t have much of a backup, DJ LeMahieu being the most likely.

Torres’ fielding percentage was just a hair over 96 percent, with his shortstop fielding percentage under 93 percent. That number is slightly concerning, as he likely could be the opening day shortstop with LeMahieu at second. The hype on Torres was his strong defense, and he did make several great plays last season but booted some of the easier ones.

Poor play on defense sometimes leads a player to have poor hitting, and if their poor defense continues in 2019, they may have some trouble at-bat. They need to keep that same mindset at the plate, and more strength may lead to more home runs. Hopefully, Miguel Andujar and Gleyber Torres can avoid the “sophomore slump” in 2019 and make an impact on both sides of the ball.

Could New York Yankees Use Gleyber Torres As Glorified Utility Man In 2019?

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While the New York Yankees work through several injuries, it’s essential they find a versatile player that can adapt and be utilized in a variety of ways. Starting second-baseman Gleyber Torres fits the bill.
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The second-year pro might be put in a position to play a nice chunk of the 2019 season at shortstop while Didi Gregorius heals from Tommy John surgery. Torres performed well last season,hitting .271 with 24 home runs over 431 at-bats.

The 22-year-old has shown he can be a consistent player in an intimidating Yankees batting order, but his defensive skills have been questioned.It was thought the Yankees might be grooming him to be the shortstop of the future, as that was his position in the minor leagues. He was later moved to second-base and made 12 errors. While at shortstop, he committed 5 errors over 21 games,which prompted the move to second.

Looking at the numbers — 2.9 WAR in 2018 — it’s obvious that Torres had issues with fielding, similar to Miguel Andujar, who at third-base clocked 15 errors. At the ripe young age of 22, Gleyber has plenty of time to improve upon his weaknesses. Instilling faith in the youth player might be something the Yankees would consider,such as putting him back at shortstop until Didi returns.

Alternative options:

The only other legitimate options the Yankees have at shortstop are 24-year-old Tyler Wade and superstar free agent Manny Machado. It seems as if they are leaning towards signing Machado to take over the shortstop position, especially if Didi leaves for free-agency in 2019.

 

New York Yankees: Gleyber Torres Named A.L Player Of The Week

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New York Yankees, Gleyber Torres

After a week in which we seen New York Yankees rookie Gleyber Torres become the youngest player in A.L history to homer in four straight games he has been named A.L Player of the Week.

Torres slashed .368/.429/1.158 with five home runs and nine RBI over six games between May 21-27th. Gleyber started the week off blasting two home runs against the Texas Rangers in his first multi-hr game and had three multi-hit games during the stretch.

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GT is slashing .317/.379/.606 with nine HR, and twenty four RBI for the season. Torres leads all A.L rookies  with his .606 slugging, nine HR, twenty four RBI, and 1.7 WAR.

The 21 year old phenom has been everything a Yankee fan could dream of, breaking multiple records already including a few that belonged to the legendary Yankee Mickey Mantle since his call up on April 22nd. GT is making himself a strong candidate to win Rookie of the Year, and we will continue to watch to see if he can keep up this pace all season.

Gleyber Torres Has Played A Lot Like Jose Altuve In His First 21 Games

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New York Yankees, Gleyber Torres

It is safe to say that the New York Yankees have been on a tear ever since calling up their young phenom middle infielder, Gleyber Torres, on April 22nd, going 18-3 in that span. Not only that, but the top-ranked prospect in the Yankees farm system (4th in MLB’s Top 100 Pipeline) has been a major contributor to their success.

Perhaps the pinnacle of his early days on the team was his 3-run walk-off homer against Cleveland that landed in the Yankees bullpen a couple weeks ago. His gritty at-bats, Roberto Alomar impressions with the glove, and upbeat demeanor in the dugout appear to be factors as well.

Watch Gleyber Torres Walk It Off:

Torres, at first glance, seems to have an unsustainable BABIP (Batting Average on Balls In Play) at .400, where league average this year is .295. The main culprit for this is usually luck, and that’s probably no different for Torres to a point.

His batting average on ground balls is .333, the same for fly balls, yet the league hits .238 and .225, respectively. If we were to adjust Torres’ hit totals to league average on grounders and flyballs, we would be taking about 3 hits away and bringing his average down from .324 to .282. Out of his 23 hits, maybe a couple grounders were hit hard enough to sneak through, while one more bloop than normal landed where nobody was. He does have one infield hit, but that’s about what he should have, compared to what the rest of the league is doing. That is still very good.

However, not every player is bound by a league average BABIP. So far in 2018 hitters have about a 21% line drive rate, with a 43% ground ball rate, and the remaining 36% goes to flyballs – which is all very typical. Torres, on the other hand, in his first 21 games as a major leaguer has managed a 30% line drive rate and just a 34% ground ball rate. Were he to have started in the bigs on opening day and managed to maintain those percentages, that would place him 6th in the league among all qualifiers in line drive rate and 7th lowest in ground ball rate. You know who else has LD%/GB% like that? Jose Altuve.

Even if we adjust his batting average on non-line drives to league average, he would still have a higher than normal BABIP of .351 because of his elevated line drive rate. And… AHEM… Altuve currently has a .348 BABIP, with much closer to normal batting averages on grounders and fly balls. I should also mention that both players’ batting average on line drives are right at league average, at around .680.

Gleyber’s approach is an aggressive one, swinging at 36% of pitches out of the zone. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Nolan Arenado, J.D. Martinez, and Altuve all have outside swing rates north of 30%, and they make it work. Obviously, this is a small sample size, but you won’t hear me complain if he winds up a comparable hitter to Altuve on a consistent basis.

Torres has been doing something that you don’t see very often, and he deserves credit for it, small samples notwithstanding. I should also note that his pedigree and projections dictated that he would be hitting pretty much the way he has, albeit the fact that it’s happening so soon is a pleasant surprise. But I digress…

While Torres has been very comparable to Altuve in both his approach and batted ball results, his non-cumulative offensive numbers have been in the same ballpark as well.

Here’s how Gleyber Torres and Jose Altuve match up in 2018 so far:

Torres: .324/.372/.493, 6.3% walk rate, 24.1% strikeout rate, .368 wOBA, 131 wRC+

Altuve: .309/.364/.414, 7.0% walk rate, 12.6% strikeout rate, .341 wOBA, 117 wRC+

Those numbers are pretty close, excluding the fact that Torres strikes out twice as much and hits for a little more power. Torres’ advantage in power so far is reflected in his higher wRC+ as well.

Because defensive metrics are still a work in progress, I find them to be arbitrary. Especially this early in the season, so I’m not going to travel down that rabbit hole for now. Based on what we’ve seen I’m at least comfortable with declaring him to be a very good second baseman. And boy, is Gleyber fun to watch out there or what? The kid is everywhere.

Full disclosure, when I began working on this article the intent was not to create a side-by-side comparison of the two second baseman. During my research into his advanced analytics I noticed that Altuve’s name was consistently nearby on league rankings, so here we are. There is no way to know what the rest of the season holds for Torres, and same goes for the rest of his career, but when a 21 year old kid gets promoted to the Major Leagues and performs the way Gleyber has it is worth noting. Nice job, kid.

 

The New York Yankees Had To ‘Earn’ The Best Record In Baseball

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It was a long, long time ago. The New York Yankees had just lost 8-5 to the Toronto Blue Jays. It was April 20 and the Bombers were 9-9. Giancarlo Stanton was striking out at an alarming rate and fans were ready to burn down the city.

For those same beloved fans, that seems like forever ago. Here we sit on May 10 and the Yankees have only lost once since that horrifying day in April.

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Can they complete the sweep?

The Yankees are looking for a series sweep against the rival Boston Red Sox. They have won 17 of their last 18 games and currently have the best record in baseball at 26-10. Is anyone surprised?

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Back in December, the Yankees traded a bucket of balls for the reigning NL MVP Giancarlo Stanton. The feeling in the Bronx was that this team was never going to lose again. After a slow start, they figured it out thanks to the play of their young guns.

Miguel Andujar and Gleyber Torres have been spark plugs in this Yankee lineup to go along with Stanton, Aaron Judge and the AL Player of the Month for April, Didi Gregorius.

The Yankees have dealt with minor injuries throughout the season, most notable to Brandon Drury. Jordan Montgomery will be on the shelf for a few weeks but this team will surely not struggle without their fifth starter. Their pitching has been good enough to get by. The catalyst is Luis Severino but the rotation is surviving thanks to the success of ageless wonder, C.C. Sabathia. He holds a 2-0 record with a 1.39 ERA in 32.1 innings.

The Yankees were an early season favorite to win the Fall Classic. They were expected to win 100 games and break all different home run records in a season. Some might have said that it was impossible or too good to be true but here in the now, the Yanks are showing the world that they are for real and it is not a dream.