Gleyber Torres left the Yankees’ series finale against the Rays on Thursday afternoon with a tight left hamstring and was being evaluated, but manager Aaron Boone was unsure of his shortstop's status after the game.
"He’s icing now, he seems to think it’s just a little tight, but we’ll probably get this imaged, see what it is and go from there," Boone said.
While running out what ended up as an RBI groundout in the third inning, Torres appeared to stumble while running down the line, and crossed the bag somewhat gingerly. He was replaced defensively to start the fourth inning by Thairo Estrada, who took over at second base with Tyler Wade moving to shortstop.
In Torres' case, losing him would leave the Yankees very thin in the middle infield; Wade and Estrada are both natural shortstops, but with the roster as constructed Thursday, they are also the de facto fifth/sixth outfielders (and only backup option without losing the DH if the other four are all in the lineup) – and, without both Torres and DJ LeMahieu, the Yankees don’t have a true backup middle infield option. The team did sign Jordy Mercer this week and has both Matt Duffy and Kyle Holder at the alternate site, but all of those players would require a 40-man roster move to bring up, so that leaves third baseman Gio Urshela, who has 109 career innings played in the middle infield but none since 2018.
The Yankees may, however, end up with another unfortunate reprieve: their next opponents, the Mets, had their Thursday night game in Miami postponed after someone on the team tested positive for COVID-19, and MLB later decided to postpone Friday's scheduled Subway Series opener at Citi Field as well, with further postponements of that series pending.
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