NEW YORK — Gleyber Torres rose slowly from the chalky dirt after landing just a few feet from the safety of third base. The momentum built by a few well-timed hits had faded, leaving the Yankees infielder wondering how quickly things could change.
Representing the tying run, Torres was thrown out on a key play in the seventh inning Tuesday night, ending a budding rally. A Colton Cowser home run quickly tipped the scales in the Orioles’ favor, sending the Yankees to a 5-3 loss at Yankee Stadium.
“At the end of the day, these things can’t happen,” Yankees captain Aaron Judge said. “We can’t keep shooting ourselves in the foot with mistakes like that on the trails. But it happened, and we have to move on and get ready for tomorrow.”
The Yankees were limited to Judge’s major league-high 56th home run in six innings, with Dean Kremer working five of those innings.
Anthony Rizzo hit a one-out double from Cionel Perez, and Alex Verdugo hit a two-out infield single that prompted Baltimore to call on Yennier Cano.
Torres greeted the right-hander with his third hit of the game, a groundball double that cleared the right-field fence and brought home Rizzo to cut the deficit to 4-2.
Four pitches later, Soto hit a hard single to right field that brought in Verdugo. That’s where the trouble started.
Anthony Santander came in strong from right field, sending a one-hop throw toward home plate. Third base coach Luis Rojas had held Torres, but Soto was looking to reach second base when Santander’s throw went in.
This prompted Torres to score.
“It was a big play,” Torres said. “I just tried to protect Soto, but I feel like I need to be a little more aggressive. If I have to make that decision, I’m going to run. I think that’s going to be my mistake.”
Catcher Adley Rutschman threw to second base, where shortstop Gunnar Henderson threw a throw to the plate. Torres stopped halfway down the baseline, soon to be thrown out in a 9-2-6-2-5-2-6 pickle.
“I think he thought Soto was going to be out,” manager Aaron Boone said. “But you have to commit. Once Rutschman is ready to pitch, you’re either going to sell to go or you’re going to bluff him and get away with it. He got caught in the middle.”
It was Torres’ sixth strikeout this season, tying him with the Rays’ Yandy Diaz for the most strikeouts in the major leagues.
“A handful of those plays are two-out, bang-bang plays on aggressive pitches,” Boone said. “It’s important to have context with that. He makes some errors on the bases. He’s improved a lot from last year and the year before, where he got himself in trouble a lot.”
“He’s toned down his aggression a little bit. But I also think tonight it’s about protecting a rider.”
The play ended the inning with Judge leading off, although Baltimore likely would have intentionally walked Judge with first base open if all runners had been safe.
“It might have just been a little miscommunication,” Judge said. “He was struggling the whole way. I think he wanted to score and he got the stop sign. It was kind of a no man’s land there.”
