Gleyber Torres comes alive as Yanks pummel Red Sox 9-1

Gleyber Torres picked a good time to power up. The Yankees’ struggling shortstop homered for the second time in as many nights Sunday after not having gone deep since June 5 and to lead the Yankees to a 9-1 win over the Red Sox in front of a crowd of 40.309 at the Stadium.

After losing their first seven games against the Red Sox this season, the Yankees (48-44) have now won back-to-back games, taking two out of the three games played. They needed to make a statement and a move against Boston (56-38) and the division. They are now seven games back of the Red Sox in the American League East.

James Taillon pitched five shutout innings, his second scoreless start of the season. The righthander scattered four hits, walked two and struck out three in 5.1 innings of work. He got himself in a jam in the sixth with back-to-back, one-out singles to J.D. Martinez and Xander Bogaerts. Chad Green, who ended the first half by giving up a walk-off home run to Jose Altuve that capped the Astros’ six-run ninth, came in and cleaned up.

Greg Allen singled, scored a run thanks to a perfectly executed hit-and-run with DJ LeMahieu and Giancarlo Stanton beating out the double play on his grounder to shortstop. He also drove in another with a sacrifice fly after an eight-pitch battle, to give the Yankees a spark.

It was a very un-Yankee like way to get runs across, but Ryan LaMarre, Rougned Odor and Torres provided the power. LaMarre hit his first of the season and the fifth in parts of six seasons in the big leagues in the eighth. Odor hit his 10th of the season, a two-run shot in the seventh.

It was a completely different energy for the Yankees, who still managed to lose an outfielder (Trey Amburgey with a hamstring cramp) for the second straight night.

Torres, who also drew two walks, including a bases-loaded freebie, hit his fifth homer of the season in the second to give the Yankees and Taillon a lead to work with. It was the second shot for the Yankees’ shortstop in as many games, the first time he has done that in the regular season since August 2019. He also did it in the playoffs that season. Before Saturday night’s home run, which tied the game, Torres had gone 28 games without a homer.

In 2019, Torres hit 38 home runs in the regular season. Last season, which was obviously unusual with the season abbreviated to 60 games because of the coronavirus pandemic, Torres suffered a power outage that the Yankees chalked up to a leg injury and the fact he was out of shape. But it has bled into this season as well. His OPS-plus has dropped from 122 and 127 in his first two seasons in the big leagues to 102 in 2020 and 80 this season. He went into Sunday night’s game with the lowest average exit velocity (86.6) of his career and the highest ground ball percentage (43.9) of his career.

Torres said he has worked with Yankees hitting coaches Marcus Thames and PJ Pilliterre on trying to get back to the stance he had in 2019.

“The first half. I don’t do too many things with my lower half with my stance at the home plate. On too many things I changed a little bit to get more control,” Torres said. “And now I am just being more consistent in the approach. I mean I did a lot of work with Marcus) and PJ in the cage before the game and try to be the same stance that it was before and just try to control the zone and control the pitch I can hit and try to be more consistent in every at-bat.”

The Yankees went into this season knowing that Torres was a better defensive second baseman than shortstop, but dismissing 2020 as an outlier and that if he came into the year in shape his offense would be enough to make up for his defense.

So far, that has not been the case, but Aaron Boone was encouraged by his swings of late.

“I know there’s been a lot of talk obviously about Gleyber and not hitting the ball out of the ballpark but I felt like he swung the bat well in Houston and we know what he’s capable of,” the Yankees manager said. “It was encouraging no doubt.”

It would be huge for the Yankees to get Torres hot right now. With Aaron Judge and Gio Urshela on the COVID-19 injured list and Luke Voit out with a bone bruise on his left knee, the Yankees need someone to pick up their already light-weight offense during this stretch where they need to make a stand to save their playoff hopes.