Gleyber Torres drives in all 5 runs as Yankees beat Jays again

When Gleyber Torres thinks about the hardest part of the previous two seasons, it’s not necessarily a specific day or a specific at-bat. It’s more about the sour taste that lingered well into the offseason, that of having let his team down.

It’s one that had him poring through video, trying to identify the hiccups in his swing, and had him changing his mechanics.

“I didn’t do too much for the team – it’s as simple as that,” he said. “I feel that in those years, I got many opportunities to do things for my team. I had the opportunity and I missed, I failed, but this year, I’m just trying to be…more consistent.”

With good results, too.

Torres went 2-for-4 Wednesday and drove in all of the Yankees' runs as they turned aside the Blue Jays, 5-3 at Yankee Stadium to complete the two-game sweep. Their 22-8 record is best in baseball, and the best the franchise has seen since 2003, when they started the year 23-7.

His three-run homer in the fourth erased a one-run deficit, and his two-run single in the sixth provided Yankees' pitchers all the room they would need and more. Three of his five homers this year have given the Yankees the lead.

“He’s had to fight for some playing time here early in the year and he’s responded to that in the way you’d hope,” Aaron Boone said of Torres, who has played in 28 games, but started in 21. “I feel like he’s in a really good place, teamwise. I think that’s one of the beauties that's going on in that room – not just him, everyone is just about us trying to win today and what can I do to be a part of that. He’s really focused on that.”

Jameson Taillon, Michael King and Clay Holmes continued the Yankees' streak of dominant pitching, and Aroldis Chapman danced around a dangerous ninth.

With the Yankees up 5-2, Chapman allowed a double to Santiago Espinal, moved Espinal over to third on a wild pitch, and then walked pinch hitter Vinny Capra to put runners at the corners for George Springer, who hit a sacrifice fly. Bo Bichette missed tying it by a few feet, when a long fly ball veered to the left of the foul pole, but Chapman came back to strike him out swinging. That brought up Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who popped out to second to end it.

“It’s exciting for me that on any given night it can be any player in any situation who can come through,” Taillon said. “We’re just able to beat teams in so many ways this year.”

Teoscar Hernandez’s force out scored the opening run in the first, but Taillon retired the next two to strand two.

The Yankees didn’t get anything going against Jose Berrios until the fourth, when Anthony Rizzo and DJ LeMahieu hit back-to-back singles to put runners on the corners with one out. That was enough for Torres, who came up and hit a middle-in fastball 361 feet to the short porch in right for his second homer in three days and the 3-1 lead.

The Blue Jays got one back in the sixth, on Matt Chapman’s sacrifice fly, but Torres’ erased that and then some in the bottom of the inning, lacing a two-run single off Trevor Richards to make it 5-2. The five RBIs give Torres 18 for the year.

Taillon pitched 5 1/3 innings, allowing the two runs and six hits with a walk and four strikeouts, actually increasing the Yankees starters ERA slightly, to 2.77, but still making it the best in the American League.

“He’s always been able to pull the ball but when he’s going the other way, he’s just a complete hitter,” LeMahieu said of Torres, whose hits were to right and center. “It seems like all his hits are up the middle or the other way and he looks really good.”

By Laura Albanese

laura.albanese@newsday.com@AlbaneseLaura

Laura Albanese is a reporter, feature writer and columnist covering local professional sports teams; she began at Newsday in 2007 as an intern.