New York Yankees: Another one bites the dust, Gleyber Torres goes down

Gleyber Torres becomes the latest New York Yankees player to go down.

Over the last few seasons, the New York Yankees have made a name for themselves not only for their prolific home run hitting abilities but for their injuries as well. The latest player to “bite the dust?” None other than the starting shortstop, Gleyber Torres.

It happened in the 3rd inning of today’s affair against the Tampa Bay Rays when Torres hit a ground ball and stumbled on his way to first base.

It isn’t exactly clear that Torres is injured, though in today’s broadcast on YES Paul O’Niell and David Cone seem to feel that the stumble in question appears to have been caused by pulling something (hamstring?).

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Much like the 2019 season when the team’s rallying call became “Next Man Up!”, this season the Yanks continue to deal with an unprecedented number of injuries to some of their top players. Just this morning, Zack Britton was placed on the 10-day IL with a hamstring injury.

Britton joins…

1. Tommy Kahnle
2. Kyle Higashioka
3. Aaron Judge
4. Giancarlo Stanton
5. DJ LeMahieu

…and more New York Yankees players to be sidelined by injury this season. Now, the team is holding out hope that Torres avoid a stint on the IL as well.

For Gleyber Torres, the timing could not be worse for this apparent injury.

Gleyber struggled in the earlier part of the 2020 season, hitting just .119 with a .368 OPS in his first 12 games. Since then, however, Torres has started to pick things up quite a bit. In fact, in his last 11 games, Torres is hitting .382 with a .964 OPS.

Fortunately for the Yankees, there are a number of players that could come in and replace Gleyber, though they aren’t necessarily of his caliber.

First, you have Thairo Estrada, who literally replaced Torres in the lineup just today. Then you have guys like Kyle Holder and Jordy Mercer, who are currently at the team’s alternate site.

The Yankees could also slide Gio Urshela over to short and call up Miguel Andujar to play third base.

The point is, sure, this injury definitley hurts the team. At this rate, however, perhaps the main concern should be to have these guys healthy for the postseason, which is closer than we all may think.