Gleyber Torres was benched mid-game Friday after a lack of hustle on the bases – if you missed it, he admired what he thought was a home run that turned out to be off the wall, and what could’ve been a double had he hustled out of the box ended up being a long single, one that cost a run when he was later thrown out at home trying to score from first.
This isn’t the first time Torres has notably shown a lack of hustle, and it is the second time he’s been benched this season for various reasons, and a lot of fans have been vocal on social media and our airwaves about being done with Gleyber, or how they can’t wait for him to be gone.
There stands one voice of reason on the other side, though, and that is Mets fan(?!) Pete Hoffman, who isn’t absolving Gleyber so much as noting that a lack of hustle, at least, isn’t just a him problem.
“How many times have we seen the New York Yankees not hustle? Whether it’s Giancarlo Stanton over the years, whether it's a Josh Donaldson over the years, we can go up and down this roster and see players not hustling in certain spots, but not getting benched, or warned, nothing, no conversation,” Pete said during his open overnight Saturday morning. “But Gleyber gets a hit and watches it – how many other people watch it? Juan Soto watches everything he does, but yet no one else gets benched.”
Pete said the benching ‘again confirms that the locker room is fractured,’ and brought it around to the starting pitcher.
“The reason for it was because Marcus Stroman was on the mound and he was struggling, and he couldn't handle Gleyber Torres not running out a ball that hits off the wall and should have been a double, and he goes out there and he completely craps the bed in that third inning and gives runs back,” Hoff said. “That’s the thing with Marcus Stroman, is he gets easily unraveled. He didn't start the game off well, but on top of that, you see him go out there and do that after an inning where the Yankees could have scored more runs and at least tied the game for Marcus Stroman. I will never deny that Stroman is a warrior on the mound who will go out there and battle no matter what, but on the other hand, he gets unraveled very easily and he puts blame on other people.”
And we’ve seen that before this season, too, also with Torres.
“It happened in Toronto when Gleyber couldn’t turn a double play fast enough, and if you recall, Aaron Judge went to Stroman and said, we don't do that here, we don’t show up our players,” Hoff said. “Well, Stroman did not show up Torres, but what he probably did was talk to Boone and say, ‘if I'm out, Torres gotta be out, because that was a run that would have helped us, and I want to see some repercussion.”
Which led Hoff to wondering if the best way to repair this fracture is by appeasing the one with the longer contract?
“I’m telling you right now, I wouldn't be surprised going forward if Torres doesn't play when Stroman pitches,” Hoff said. “We’ve already been told that that Torres is going back into the lineup, so then, what did he do wrong? He got thrown out at the plate because Luis Rojas sent him.”
And finally, to wrap it all up, Hoff added this about the overall fracture:
“Listening to Boone and Torres, and hearing Judge say Torres is a ‘leader in the clubhouse’ – I am lost! If that is the case, if Torres is a leader, that is why this team is fractured,” he said. “You can see already that a guy like Marcus Stroman doesn't get along with a guy like Gleyber Torres; it’s not working out. He doesn't see the same sort of battle that he puts out every time he's on the mound, and doesn’t see that hustle. Torres clearly has talent, but it's not good enough to other people if he's not putting the effort in to other people, and that’s why he got benched – because Marcus Stroman is soft, and the whole team is soft. Gleyber Torres is a scapegoat for the Yankees, and I’m tired of it.”
Listen to Hoff’s entire monologue above!