After Nearly Seven Years Of Mental Lapses, Aaron Boone Finally Grew a Pair And Benched Gleyber Torres Mid-Game On Friday Night

Rob Tringali. Getty Images.

The Gleyber Torres experience is a ride Yankee fans have been ready to get off of for a little while now. Streaky hitting, lazy defense, mental lapses, and clueless base running will get you feeling that way. He's incredibly frustrating to watch on a daily basis because 1) everything I just said and 2) his immense talent. Unfortunately the bad rears its ugly head more often than you'd like. Way more often. 

Gleyber's lackluster way of playing baseball has gone unchecked for years, until just recently. After a Subway Series game last month, Torres was benched for a few days after more of the same. His bat responded and he went on a bit of a tear, but the defensive miscues continued. Tonight, he was pulled mid-game by Boone after not hustling out of the box on this line drive off the wall. 

Now Gleyber is not exactly fleet of foot and most likely doesn't make it to second there, even if he was busting it out of the box. We'll never know for sure though with him pimping the ball off the bat, standing at home plate for a few seconds as if it was going off the facing of the second deck. 

Excuse me sounding like a 65 year old dad, but it doesn't take much to run hard to first, especially when your job is a kid's game that pays you millions of dollars. Also factor in the Yankees are neck and neck with the O's for first in the division and Judge literally just hit a 477 foot homer to cut the deficit to one. Would it kill the guy to run to first and see what happens with the play? I guess so. Gleyber of course proceeded to get gunned out at home trying to score from first on Volpe's double down the line. 

Love when my baserunners slow down and duck when trying to score on a bang-bang play at the plate. This is dodgeball right? If the throw hits you, you're out? Someone please pass the bleach. 

For so long the Yankees have had players of all shapes and sizes go on their merry way after pimping a single or dogging a play in the field. Accountability has been a giant issue with this team under Boone and has led to a lazy culture being allowed to exist in the clubhouse with nearly zero consequences. Girardi was not brought back after 2017 for getting too hard on players like Gary Sanchez. Finally, on Friday night Boone had enough and yanked Gleyber from the game. It was all caught by the YES cameras which was fascinating to see. Funny enough, Girardi was in the booth helping call the game. 

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BOONE!! Refreshing? Yes. A little late? You fucking bet. Will it lead to anything? I sure fucking hope so, but I'm not crossing my fingers by any means. Boone has already said Gleyber be in the lineup on Saturday. The prayer is that benching him mid-game sends a message to everyone that this kinda shit won't be tolerated anymore. Have others on this team and in the past done similar stuff that's gone ignored? I mean Josh Donaldson did it in the playoffs for fuck's sake. Verdugo has done it. Trent Grisham dogged a ball in CF just recently. For some reason Boone decided it was time to make an example out of Gleyber. He talked about it here, but didn't really answer the why. 

Gleyber is in his final year as a Yankee and definitely will not be coming back. He just survived yet another trade deadline despite everyone knowing the kind of player he is. Probably part of the reason for that is all the other teams know the deal as well. Despite hopes they would revamp the infield with multiple adds, Cashman settled for just one in Jazz Chisholm. That means the Yankees are stuck with Gleyber for the rest of the year. Torres' response after the Jazz trade about possibly playing some 3rd base? "I'm a second baseman." That's the league leader in errors at second base who said that. Jazz on the other hand was down to play anywhere to help the team win. That's the guy who was warned to be a clubhouse problem before coming over. Seems reversed. 

Gleyber entered Friday's game 1 for 14 since the deadline. I guess his attitude, laziness, and the cold stretch finally forced Boone's hand. Here was Gleyber afterwards. Whole answer seemed super PR-ish if you ask me. Not sure what I wanted him to say and if anything would have pleased me, but it felt a little robotic and not genuine. 

I don't know man, I just want the guy to play well and to stop with the mental errors. Contrary to popular belief I like Gleyber a lot. His dad DMing me in Spanish asking why I pick on him will tell you otherwise, but I've said some overly positive things about him in the past. I want him to do well because at his peak he really helps the team win. 

Gleyber was embarrassed Friday night. You'd think he gets shit together after this whole thing. I'm curious if Judge had a say in benching him mid-game, but he definitely spoke with him after. I hope he dug into him like the captain of the team should. You can't tolerate that lack of hustle when every game means so much this late in the year. This moment should have happened 3 or 4 years ago, but hey better late than never I suppose. 

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P.S. If there's anyone who should be thanking Gleyber it's Marcus Stroman who got the heat taken off of him after yet another joke of a start. He's been miserable of late. A complete zero on the mound since the start of June really. Glad Cashman didn't go get another starter though. God forbid he takes a gamble on Flaherty and loses with so much on the line with this team this year. Awesome.