Chichester: The Gleyber Torres praise should be as loud as the criticism was
Gleyber Torres was once again a tone-setter for the Yankees on Tuesday night, picking up hits in his first three at-bats to finish 3-for-4 with a double and three runs scored in a blowout win over the Mariners.
Torres’ big night came against no pushover, as Seattle starter Bryan Woo entered the game with a 2.38 ERA on the season. It also continued a stretch of very strong baseball from the pending free agent, as Torres is batting .311 with an .802 OPS over his last 40 games.
That is hardly a small sample size for Torres. He has not been putting up more than respectable offensive numbers for a quarter of a full major league season, and it comes on the heels of months of disappointment and vitriol from the Yankee fanbase.
To be clear, frustration from Yankee fans was warranted, as Torres, after a very strong finish to the 2023 season, came into 2024 in a contract year and fell on his face out of the gate, slumping at the plate for months while making critical mistakes in the field and on the bases that ultimately led to a brief benching by Aaron Boone. As the Yanks labored through months of mediocre baseball during the summer, Torres was one of the main targets by fans when they looked to aim their criticism and frustration at a primary culprit.
Now, as Torres continues to hit and turn his season around and respond to that benching in the best way the Yankees could have hoped for, the praise should be as loud as the criticism was.
Torres has done more than just salvage some of his contract year. He has given the Yankees something they desperately needed: a steady bat atop the lineup to set the table for Juan Soto and Aaron Judge. Whether it was Anthony Volpe or Alex Verdugo, previous leadoff experiments failed miserably, which was a massive disappointment given the historically dominant bats waiting behind the leadoff spot. Now, Soto and Judge have consistently had runners on of late, and Torres has been a big part of it. It was certainly apparent on Tuesday, as Judge drove in four runs and Soto belted his 40th home run of the season in an 11-run outburst to kick off a west coast swing.
Come playoff time, a strong leadoff bat will be critical for the Yankees. Postseason baseball brings top-flight pitching, and the first inning is often the biggest window of opportunity to get to a starter before they settle into their outing. Game five of the 2019 ALCS immediately comes to mind for the Yanks, when they tagged Justin Verlander for four runs in the first inning, and that was all they needed despite Verlander settling down the rest of the way. Torres hitting well and getting on base to start the game for Soto and Judge will be paramount. Right now, he is showing that he is more than capable.
Yankee fans expected more from Torres after the top prospect earned All-Star nods in his first two big-league seasons. That level of performance didn’t sustain itself, and as a result, Torres could be playing in his final regular season games as a Yankee. If that is the case, he is going out on a high, and it should be appreciated just as much as his previous level of play was criticized.
