Yankees' Gleyber Torres dropped from lineup to relieve pressure on struggling second baseman
New York Yankees second baseman Gleyber Torres walks to the dugout during an MLB baseball game against the Atlanta Braves at Yankee Stadium on Sunday, June 23, 2024. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
Aaron Boone said he “toiled” with the idea — going to bed intending to do one thing and waking up feeling like he should do another. And in the end, the result wasn’t just that Gleyber Torres was out of the starting lineup for the Yankees Wednesday, but that he’s likely to be out for even longer..
"I might give him a couple of days here just to reset," Boone said. "I think he’s too important and a guy that I’m confident will get going but it’s been a grind. It’s been a struggle. I think he’s feeling it a little bit. So I think it’s hopefully something that will serve him well mentally, physically to take an exhale and then work to get on a roll because when he’s going like we’ve all seen him go, he’s a really important piece to the lineup."
Torres has been mired in a horrific slump of late — 2-for-29 over his last nine games with four walks and seven strikeouts — but Tuesday night’s 9-7 loss to the Mets was especially brutal. He went 0-for-4 with a walk, struck out twice and once with the bases loaded. He also committed his 12th error which led to a run and marked the most errors by any second baseman in baseball. And then, likely the greatest sin of all: He failed to leg out a groundout with two outs in the eighth, stifling a rally that saw the Yankees score five runs in the inning.
That last one earned him a postgame trip to the manager’s office.
“That’s one of the things that got my attention, certainly,” Boone said.
After the game, Torres told reporters there was reason for his lackadaisical trot. “My groin is a little bit tight right now and in that at-bat, I felt it a little bit more,” he said.
Boone, though, said that Torres’ groin issue, which briefly sidelined him last week, was “nothing significant.”
The bigger issue, Boone said, was Torres’ mental state.
“Sometimes your brain needs to get out of the way a little bit,” Boone said before they were set to take on the Mets at Citi Field. “As players, that can get us in trouble a little bit, especially in a game of failure.”
Torres, a two-time All Star, is coming off an offensively productive 2023 season and is now in a contract year that has the potential to dictate his future in baseball and beyond. Which means his current struggles are particularly ill-timed: After hitting .273 last year, he’s slashing .215/.294/.333 this season with a 78 OPS+ (100 is league average). His quality of contact is down, and though he’s getting to more balls in the infield, he has a .960 fielding percentage, which is worst among qualified second basemen.
Boone said he’s noticed some minor issues in Torres’ mechanics at the plate, but nothing glaring. He maintains that Torres has made some improvement defensively, but “he’s made too many errors and those mistakes certainly are part of the story of the season so far.”
Torres will keep working in the next few days, and will continue collaborating with the team’s hitting coaches, Boone said. He added they haven’t spoken about the pressures of being in a contract year, but that it’s clear something is weighing on his infielder.
“I think you know your guys enough. He’s been such a consistent offensive performer throughout his career that is struggling to get on a good roll,” Boone said. “I think I sense that weighing on him, especially the last couple of days.”
Laura Albanese is a reporter, feature writer and columnist covering local professional sports teams; she began at Newsday in 2007 as an intern.