Yankees second baseman Gleyber Torres was taken out of the game on Friday night during the Yankees’ 8-5 loss to Toronto by manager Aaron Boone for not hustling. This move was intended to send a message to the team, which has had difficulties since mid-June.
Torres did not run hard after hitting a 110.7 mph drive off the left-field wall in the second inning, thinking it was a home run, and only reached first base with a single. This mistake cost the Yankees a run when he was thrown out at the plate trying to score on Anthony Volpe’s two-out double into the left-field corner.
Boone and Torres had a talk on the dugout steps before the fourth inning as Torres tried to convince the manager to let him stay in the game. Oswaldo Cabrera replaced him at second base.
“I just felt like I needed to 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 felt like I needed to do that. Simple as that. It is what it is. It’s over with.
We’ve got to move on. He and I have spoken, and hopefully this is a great learning moment for all of us.”
Torres apologized to the media after the game.
“I think he did the right thing, especially in the moment,” Torres said about Boone. “I feel really sorry for whatever I did tonight, especially for the fans and also for my teammates. I’m a human being and I make an error, and I feel like for whatever I do tonight, I’m going to learn a lot.”
Yankees captain Aaron Judge said Boone’s message was clear.
“If you’re not doing your job, you’re going to be out of there,” Judge said. “He’s made that clear to us and definitely made it clear today. If I know Gleyber, something like this isn’t going to happen again. He takes pride in his work, in his craft, and he’s definitely not happy about what happened.”
