CLEVELAND — Gleyber Torres is taking his sudden table-setting prowess to the World Series.
Torres led off the first and sixth innings with singles Saturday as he continued to be the ideal leadoff hitter that the Yankees didn’t know they had until the middle of his seventh MLB season.
After he was thrown out at home plate for the first out of the game, Torres jogged the final 85 or so feet to home plate when Giancarlo Stanton hit the game-tying two-out home run in the sixth as the Yankees flipped the script in what became a pennant-clinching 5-2 extra-innings victory in Game 5 of the ALCS.
Torres, who has been with the Yankees since 2018, said it’s “amazing” to reach the World Series with his teammates and has been glad to contribute from the leadoff spot.
“Just try to get great at-bats. … I don’t put so much pressure on myself. Just try to be on base for the entire lineup and do my part,” Torres told YES clubhouse reporter Meredith Marokovits during the champagne celebration. “Try to get on base. Try to create more runs and you know, to take really good at-bats.”
Torres struck out with two runners on base and a chance to win the game in the 10th inning, but Soto followed with the game-winning three-run home run.
Just like in a couple of the Yankees’ biggest wins during these playoffs, Torres and Soto started the game with back-to-back hits.
But the formula that has proven effective at giving the Yankees an early lead in the past didn’t quite work out the same way because Torres couldn’t beat a perfectly executed relay from Jhonkensy Noel on the warning track to Andres Gimenez to catcher Bo Naylor.
Third-base coach Luis Rojas made the decision to wave around Torres — who ran hard but once again showed he is not fleet of foot — instead of having two runners in scoring position for Aaron Judge and Stanton.
Torres has been criticized throughout his career for his effort, especially on the bases.
Gimenez’s 94.4-mile-per-hour throw was the second-fastest of his career.
With that mistake, the Yankees improbably turned a single, a double and two hit batsmen in the first inning into no runs.
It allowed Tanner Bibee — who lasted just four outs in his first start of the series — to settle in.
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The Yankees had just one hit between when Torres was thrown out and the start of the sixth, when he and Soto again started a rally with back-to-back hits.
Aaron Judge bounced into a double play before Stanton sent Bibee’s final pitch of the game toward the moon.
To keep the score tied in the bottom half of the frame, Torres ranged for a ground ball up the middle, tagged second base and threw to complete the double play all in one fluid motion.
Torres is enjoying a postseason renaissance in what could be in his final run as a Yankee, as he heads toward free agency with maybe an increasing price tag.
After scoring four of the Yankees’ 14 runs in the ALDS against the Royals, he is 8-for-22 (.363) with five runs scored in the ALCS.
“I just try to do the best I can do to bring a World Series here,” Torres said earlier in the series, “and hopefully win it together.”
In the Yankees’ stirring go-ahead two-run, ninth-inning rally off closer Emmanuel Clase during Game 4, Torres drove an RBI single to center field and was replaced for defensive purposes in a rare move.