Week 21: Gleyber Torres

Let's all welcome Gleyber Torres back to MLBoyfriend. He definitely had a noteworthy week last week with 10 runs, 6 home runs, 11 RBIs, a .323 average, and 1.318 OPS.

Torres managed to set a couple of records along the way. On Monday, August 12, he hit his 11th, 12th, and 13th home run against the Baltimore Orioles this season. Thirteen is the most any player has hit against one team in a season since the divisional era began in 1969. It's the second most in MLB history after Lou Gehrig's 1936 record of hitting 14 homers against Cleveland; however, Gehrig had 23 games against Cleveland to hit his 14, and the Yankees have only played 16 games against the Orioles this year.

Then, on Saturday, August 25, Torres hit two solo homers against Cleveland, making him the youngest player ever to hit multiple home runs in 7 games in one season. For the record, he was 22 years and 247 days old the day he set that record. Even in this season of young hitters dominating at the plate, that's really young.

Week 9: Gleyber Torres

2017 was the summer of Aaron Judge--at least here at MLBoyfriend. 2018 looks like it might well be the summer of Gleyber Torres. The rookie is off to a great start this season.

Last week Torres had his best at the plate with .318 average, 1.400 OPS, nine RBIs, five runs, five home runs. Speaking of those home runs, he managed to set a couple of records with them.

• On Monday, May 21, twenty-one-year-old Torres became the second youngest Yankee to hit two home runs in one game--Mickey Mantle was twenty years old when he set the record in 1952. Fun fact #1: On May 6, Torres broke one of Mantle's "youngest" records when he became the youngest Yankee to hit a walk-off home run--he was 45 days younger than when Mantle set the bar. Fun fact #2: Torres hit both home runs off of Bartolo Colon--Torres was three months old when Colon made his major league debut in 1996.
• Torres became the youngest player in American League history to hit home runs in four consecutive games with his fifth homer of the week on Friday, May 25. 

Torres bat didn't really heat up until recently--he's hit all of his eight major league home runs in May and, as mentioned, five of them last full week of May. However, his defense has been on point from the start. Yankees manager Aaron Boone has been very impressed with Torres fielding. After Gleyber's first week in the majors, Boone said this of him:

"He looks like a seasoned second baseman with a shortstop’s arm. I knew he was a good defender but I think he’s been great out there. There’s a confidence, there’s a heartbeat, there’s a clock that he plays with out there that’s really impressive. More so than maybe I even thought."

I was watching the Yankees v. Houston game while writing this post, and saw Torres make two great catches--confirming why I chose him this week.