Gleyber Torres' blunder on bases leaves Yankees running in circles
Baltimore Orioles shortstop Gunnar Henderson tags out the Yankees’ Gleyber Torres in a rundown during the seventh inning of an MLB game at Yankee Stadium on Tuesday. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
Yankee Stadium was poised for the Yankees to clinch the American League East crown on Tuesday night.
John Sterling was back behind the radio mic, as he will be for the rest of the season and postseason. Bernie Williams played the national anthem. Knicks star Josh Hart threw out the ceremonial first pitch, wearing a Yankees jersey with the number 32, which the Yankees retired for his late great-uncle Elston Howard.
With the Yankees going into the night with a magic number of one, the champagne was chilling near the clubhouse. Aaron Judge hit his 56th home run, a towering 407-foot drive to left in the fourth, his third straight game with a dinger.
But the Orioles had other plans, and a baserunning blunder by Gleyber Torres in the seventh cost the Yankees a chance to tie the game in their eventual 5-3 defeat.
With the Yankees trailing 4-2 and two outs, Juan Soto lined a single to right to score Alex Verdugo from third. Torres, who was on second, was immediately held up by third-base coach Luis Rojas.
The throw from rightfielder Anthony Santander was wide of the plate, and Soto took off for second. Catcher Adley Rutschman threw to second — too late to get Soto — but Torres started for home.
Shortstop Gunnar Henderson wisely ignored the sliding Soto and fired to the plate. Torres was hung up between third and home, and was eventually tagged out by Henderson trying to get back to third after a rundown to end the inning.
Judge was on deck. If Torres had just stayed at third, the Orioles would have intentionally walked Judge, giving Austin Wells a shot with the bases loaded. But we’ll never know what Wells might have done with that opportunity.
It was another chapter in the story of Torres, who has frustrated the Yankees and their fans with his gaffes, blunders and missteps.
What makes it most painful is that Torres has been a wrecking ball at the plate of late, including his 3-for-4 night on Tuesday. Torres has 33 hits in his last 100 at-bats, which even I know is a .330 batting average.
Torres said he was trying to “protect” Soto from getting thrown out at second by faking going home.
“In that situation, just protect,” Torres said. “I was a little in-between to home plate. I feel like I went a little bit late and they made me out . . . I feel like I have to be a little more aggressive. If I’m going to make that decision, go straight (to home plate). It’s going to be my mistake. Just get ready for tomorrow.”
Manager Aaron Boone agreed, but added, “You’ve got to commit to either you’re going to sell out on going or you’re going to bluff him. So he got caught in-between. His initial thought was that Juan might be out at second, so he’s trying to protect him. But, again, it’s got to be a bluff or a sellout to go. That’s the tying run, there.”
The Yankees captain was a little harsher in his Judgement of Torres’ mistake.
“It might have been just a little miscommunication,” Judge said. “But he was hustling the whole way and I think he wanted to score and he got the stop sign. Just kind of no-man’s land there. When it comes down to it, something like that can’t happen. We can’t keep shooting ourselves in the foot with mistakes like that on the basepath. But it happened. Gotta move on and get ready for tomorrow.”
There was another moment on Tuesday when you thought maybe this wasn’t going to be the Yankees’ night. Trailing 3-1 in the sixth, Giancarlo Stanton drilled a potential home run to right.
It just missed the foul pole.
Then Stanton crushed a much more foul home run to left. Then he struck out.
In the ninth, again down by two runs, Anthony Rizzo walked with one out. Jasson Dominguez came up to pinch hit for Anthony Volpe against Seranthony Dominguez (no relation), the sixth Baltimore reliever.
Jasson Dominguez grounded to second and Verdugo skied to left to end it.
On this night, there would be not clinching, no “Theeeeeeeee Yankees win!” from Sterling, and no champagne stains on the Yankees clubhouse carpet.
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.
