Did Yankees’ Gleyber Torres dog it again? ‘You gotta run,’ Aaron Boone says

Yankees second baseman Gleyber Torres was booed at Yankee Stadium in the seventh inning of Saturday's 12-2 loss to Tampa Bay for jogging to first base and being thrown out after a strikeout that got away from the catcher.
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NEW YORK — The Yankees fans who didn’t head for the exits early booed long and hard Saturday afternoon when the home seventh ended with Gleyber Torres striking out and then jogging to first base when the ball got past Tampa Bay Rays catcher Mike Zunino.

The Yankee Stadium chorus grew louder when Torres, who finally picked up the pace halfway to first, was thrown out on a close play.

This was a bad look on a bad day for the Yankees, who were blown out 12-2 and blew an opportunity to clinch a playoff berth.

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As for Torres, this appeared to be the second time in about four weeks that he failed to hustle.

Or was it?

The way manager Aaron Boone seemed to explain, Torres either lost track of the outs or didn’t know the rule that batters can reach safely on a strikeout/wild pitch with a runner on first base if there are two outs.

“Well first off, you gotta run,” Boone said in his post-game presser. “I mean, that’s the answer. He felt bad about it. I think what happened with him was with first base being occupied, his first reaction was you don’t go. But obviously with two outs that’s different, so he kind of caught himself a third of the way down the line like, ‘Oh crap, I gotta go.’ But it’s something you’ve got to know and be on top of it. But it’s also something feels terrible about and we got to learn from.”

Yes, Torres should learn the rules. Actually, he should know that one backwards and forwards being a big leaguer with a few years experience.

Boone benched Torres for a lack of hustle when he didn’t run out a ground ball during a September game against the Baltimore Orioles, but he didn’t consider sending a message at the tail end of this bad day.

“No,” Boone said.

Why?

“Just in our situation, if I was going to have to go to a position player to pitch, I needed to keep my bench where I was going to be able to bring somebody in case I had to go that route there in the ninth,” Boone said.

Boone added that first baseman Anthony Rizzo was “ready to go” to pitch the ninth for what would have been his third career outing, but the part of saving his bench made no sense.The Yankees didn’t sub any position players all day. DJ LeMahieu was unavailable Saturday because he got a cortisone shot to calm down his sports hernia, but the Yankees still had No. 2 catcher Kyle Higashioka, infielder Rougned Odor and infielder/outfielder Tyler Wade on their bench.

What’s possible here is Boone was reluctant to pull Torres during a time in which he’s played his best baseball of the season. Torres was 0-for-4 with three strikeouts and a booted grounder that was ruled a single on Saturday, but he’s hit .299 with two homers in 18 games since being moved from shortstop to second base on Sept. 13 due to erratic defense.

Yankees fans, by the way, sent one more reminder to Torres that they didn’t like what he did in the ninth inning. When Gardner struck out and reached first after running hard all the way, the crowd roared in approval.

Torres’ in-game benching came on Sept. 14, his second game following his position switch. Torres was back in the lineup the next day, has played every game since and he’ll surely play second again Sunday when the Yankees will try again to clinch a Wild Card berth.

This loss left the Yankees tied with Boston for the first Wild Card and one game ahead of Toronto and Seattle. The regular season ends Sunday.

“Do I expect us to come out and play well and win a ballgame?” Boone said. “Absolutely.”

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Randy Miller may be reached at rmiller@njadvancemedia.com.

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