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.



Did I mention that Gleyber Torres is only 21? Baseball players aren't supposed to be this good that young. We tend to forget that because two of the current MLB superstars, Mike Trout and Bryce Harper, were both red hot at the age of twenty-one; however, they are the exceptions not the rule. There is a lot of debate about the exact age at which most baseball players "peak", but it's safe to say it's in their late twenties. So, there's a chance that this is the worst we'll see Torres play until he begins to decline in his early thirties.

If all that weren't enough, Torres looks really good in the greatest uniform in sports history, Yankee pinstripes.

Congratulations, Gleyber Torres! You are my MLBoyfriend of the week, and you have set another record: You are the youngest MLBoyfriend in baseball history!