New York Yankees second baseman Gleyber Torres once again found himself in the crosshairs of manager Aaron Boone on Friday night, this time leading to a well-deserved benching.
Torres drew the ire of Boone in the bottom of the third inning when he smashed a 110.7 MPH line drive off the left-field wall. However, what should have been a double ended up being a mere single as Torres admired the shot and lollygagged thinking it was a home run.
Just two batters later, Torres was thrown out at home plate on an Anthony Volpe double.
After stewing on it a bit, Boone decided to break his own personal tradition and benched Torres an inning later. The 27-year-old protested to no avail and offered his apologies after the game, an 8-5 loss to the Toronto Blue Jays.
“I have to get better,” Torres said, via ESPN. “And I feel really sorry for [what I did] tonight, especially for the fans and also for my teammates. I’m a human being. I made an error and I feel like from what I did tonight I’m going to learn a lot. And I just want to compete with my teammates and I want to play great. And do 100 percent for my team.”
Boone revealed his decision to wait on the Torres benching was so that his replacement, Oswaldo Cabrera, has time to warm up.
“I just felt like I needed to [bench him] in that spot,” Boone said. “I’m not going to get too down the rabbit hole of making judgments on this one. I just felt like, in that moment, I needed to do that. Simple is that. Is what it is. It’s over with. You got to move on. He and I have spoken and hopefully this is a great learning moment for all of us.”
Yankees superstar Aaron Judge also spoke with Torres after his benching and praised the second baseman for returning to the clubhouse instead hiding in the locker room.
Unfortunately for the Yankees, this type of behavior is becoming all too common from Torres. He’s been criticized at multiple points this season for a lack of effort and also raised eyebrows for resisting a move to third base following the Jazz Chisholm Jr. trade.
A free agent after the season, Torres is likely entering the final months of his Yankees career. He’s batting a career-worst .233/.308/.359 with 10 home runs, 42 RBI and a WAR of just 0.4. He’s also fourth in baseball with 14 errors.
