Gleyber, Giancarlo jolt Yankees' offense back to life

DENVER -- They’re not the “M&M Boys,” but maybe you can call them the “G&G Boys” for the time being.

The mere mention of Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris in connection with the 2023 Yankees may seem outrageous on its face, given the club’s offensive woes. But Gleyber Torres and Giancarlo Stanton are doing the heavy lifting for New York’s offense right now.

Torres picked up two more hits, Stanton belted a three-run homer -- his fourth home run in four games -- and Clarke Schmidt turned in perhaps the finest start of his Major League career in the Yankees’ 6-3 victory over the Rockies at Coors Field on Saturday night.

The performance at the plate, at least to some degree, alleviated the ever-growing angst over New York’s lackluster production since superstar slugger Aaron Judge went on the injured list with a torn ligament in his right big toe in early June.

Couple that with Schmidt’s encouraging outing and the Yankees, while not where they want to be, are a world away from where they were following a 7-2 loss Friday night that spoiled new hitting coach Sean Casey’s debut.

“We show up every day to shake hands at the end of the night,” manager Aaron Boone said. “ … We had a lot of good, tough at-bats, even down in the count there to put together a big [five-run second] inning. … So it was good to see some guys get some results.”

Torres, who went 3-for-4 in Friday’s series opener, opened Saturday’s contest with a triple off the wall in right-center field on the first pitch he saw from Colorado starter Connor Seabold. Stanton, who accounted for all of New York’s offense in Friday’s loss with his two-run homer, brought Torres in with an RBI groundout.

The Yanks added on in the second. DJ LeMahieu doubled and scored on Kyle Higashioka’s sacrifice fly, Torres poked an RBI single to center and Stanton followed with his three-run clout to right to make it 6-1. In driving himself in, Stanton reached 1,000 career RBIs.

Stanton missed about six weeks with a hamstring strain earlier this season, and upon his return, he struggled at the plate. On July 3, he was slashing .195/.259/.398 in 139 plate appearances. But in eight games since, he’s hitting .296 with two doubles and four homers.

Boone seemed encouraged by the recent improvement, but he hesitated to say Stanton is “fully dialed in” yet.

“He’s definitely swinging better,” Boone said. “ … But I don’t want to go and say he’s [all the way] there because that’s a different level. … He’s definitely moving in the right direction.”

Moving in the right direction was the theme of the night for New York.

LeMahieu, who had gone 20 games without a multihit performance (a span over which he hit .167 with five extra-base hits), has two in the past two games. Since making his return to Coors Field, where he played for the Rockies from 2012-18, he’s 5-for-8 with a pair of doubles.

On the mound, meanwhile, Schmidt went six-plus innings while yielding two runs on three hits, walking one and striking out eight on 92 pitches (57 strikes). It was the first time in the Majors that he took a start into the seventh inning.

Things didn’t start out so well for Schmidt -- he hit the first batter he faced, walked another in the first and then balked home a run. But he quickly adjusted.

“[The shape of my pitches] was a big emphasis,” Schmidt said. “I threw a bullpen [session] -- I just touched the mound yesterday and my shapes were terrible. … I didn’t expect to go into the game throwing curveballs because even today in the bullpen, they weren’t good.

“And then I was like, ‘I’m just gonna try to throw them all in the dirt,’ and they would go in the bottom half of the zone. I think it was just that extra emphasis on setting your sights a little lower than you typically would.”

A great outing from Schmidt and Stanton heating up were positives. But Josh Donaldson’s season average fell to .142 after an 0-for-4 night (he's scheduled for an MRI after aggravating a right calf injury in his final at-bat), and outside of Stanton, Torres and LeMahieu, the Yankees had just two hits.

It’s far from a lineup firing on all cylinders, but the Yankees will take it while hoping the results begin to spread throughout the batting order. With Judge progressing toward a return, the hope is that such a scenario develops just in time.

“Look, we’re capable,” Boone said. “They’re grinding. And a lot of these guys are gonna get hot together. And that’s when the fun happens.”