Yanks top prospect Torres tallies 1st career hit
NEW YORK -- Gleyber Torres collected the first of what the Yankees expect will be many big league hits on Monday during a 14-1 win, stroking an eighth-inning single to center field off the Twins' Tyler Kinley.
Rated as the No. 5 prospect in all of baseball by MLB Pipeline, Torres made his debut in Sunday's win over the Blue Jays. He was hitless in his first seven at-bats before the knock, and he came around to score on a grand slam by Didi Gregorius, which gave the Yanks a 12-1 lead.
"Everybody was happy and excited for my first base hit," Torres said. "I feel good. I feel super happy, too, and today, super excited."
Torres beamed as the ball was tossed to the Yankees' dugout, where pitcher Luis Severino scooped it on a bounce and pretended to toss the memento into the seats before finding a safe spot on the bench.
Torres said that he would save the ball and show it to his family.
"It was cool," manager Aaron Boone said. "The guys were really excited about it for him. It was cool to see everyone from CC [Sabathia] on down to the young guys excited when that hit fell in.
"I thought he had some good at-bats tonight. He's doing a pretty good job of controlling the zone. I thought he was on a couple of pitches when he popped up, but I think the at-bat quality was solid all night. Good to get that first hit out of the way, and hopefully he can be on his way now."
Torres said that his nerves were calmer than they had been for his debut on Sunday. At 21 years and 131 days, he is the youngest Yankee to record a hit since Melky Cabrera (20 years, 338 days) on July 15, 2005, at Boston.
"That was good," Giancarlo Stanton said. "That's always good to see that, to get them going here. A lot more to come."