Gleyber Torres hits three home runs in Yanks' doubleheader sweep of Orioles

Maybe some of the Yankees were disappointed about getting rained out on Monday and Tuesday. Gleyber Torres wasn’t that broken up because it gave his sore right elbow two extra days to rest.

Torres was in the proposed lineups for both of the rained-out games. He was back in the lineup for both games of a doubleheader on Wednesday and hit three home runs as the Yankees swept the Orioles at Yankee Stadium.

 In the opener, Torres hit two of the Yankees’ four home runs, including the go-ahead shot in the fourth inning, as the Yankees won, 5-3.

 In the nightcap, Torres hit his third home run of the day in the Yankees’ 3-1 victory. Domingo German improved to 8-1 by allowing one run and tied a career high by pitching seven innings.

Torres missed Sunday’s game after getting hit with a pitch on Friday in Tampa Bay.

“I felt a lot of pain when I throw the ball,” Torres said. “It’s weird – I hit pretty well. I don’t feel anything, but when I tried to throw the ball I felt really sore, a lot of pain. But no pain, no gain. I just try to help my team. I know it’s a bad situation for us right now – everybody’s got an injury. If I can play with pain, I do. For sure, the last couple days off, my elbow got rest and feels a little bit better right now.”

J.A. Happ won the opener after being pulled with one out in the sixth after throwing just 64 pitches with the Yankees leading 5-3. Manager Aaron Boone removed Happ to go to his powerful bullpen, which was well-rested after the rainouts. The Yankees are also off on Thursday.

Happ (3-3) said he wanted to stay in. When Boone came out to the mound, “I just wanted to make sure he remembered we had a doubleheader,” Happ quipped. “He did and he’s got his reasons. Of course, the four guys that came in were about as nasty as I’ve seen all year. They were disgusting.”

Adam Ottavino, Tommy Kahnle, Zack Britton and Aroldis Chapman (10th save) combined to throw 3 2/3 innings of scoreless relief with seven strikeouts. The game took two hours and 12 minutes and was played in front of a crowd of a few thousand.

“It’s not very often that we play where it’s so sparse out there,” Boone said. “So it felt a little odd at first to me.”

Before his go-ahead homer, Torres went deep in the second inning against Orioles starter David Hess (1-5), who gave up a home run to Gary Sanchez in the first and another to Cameron Maybin in the second.

Sanchez’s 12th homer traveled 443 feet to left-center and was his sixth against the Orioles this season. Maybin’s, which went to right, was his first as a Yankee. All four Yankees homers were solo shots. It was the fourth two-homer game of Torres’ career; three have come against the Orioles.

In Game 2, Luke Voit gave the Yankees a 1-0 lead with an RBI double in the third and Torres made it 2-0 with his eighth home run of the season leading off the fourth against Andrew Cashner.

The Orioles closed to within 2-1 on Hanser Alberto’s fifth-inning sacrifice fly. With his top bullpen quartet having pitched in Game 1, Boone left in German for the seventh, even after the Orioles loaded the bases with two outs on two singles, a wild pitch and a walk. With Luis Cessa warming, German got Joey Rickard to ground into an inning-ending 5-4 forceout.

German, who threw 85 pitches, allowed six hits, walked one and struck out eight.

Voit, who had been struggling, singled home a run in the bottom of the seventh to make it 3-1. Then it was left to the lefties: Britton pitched a scoreless eighth and Chapman set down the Orioles in order in the ninth with two strikeouts for his 11th save.

The second game took 2:29 and was played before an announced crowd of 41,138.

Obviously, the rainouts and knowing you’ve got to come in and play a doubleheader, I thought the energy the guys came out with in the first game was excellent,” Boone said. “A lot of guys contributing again today and a really good way to head into the off day, when you can put two wins in your pocket.”

By Anthony Rieber

anthony.rieber@newsday.comAnthonyRieber

Anthony Rieber covers baseball, as well as the NFL, NBA and NHL. He has worked at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998, and has been in his current position since July 5, 2004.