What Gleyber Torres, Yankees said about his mental, physical mistakes

Yankees rookie second baseman Gleyber Torres had a couple of costly goofs in Saturday’s 5-1 loss to the Houston Astros.

NEW YORK — Yankees second baseman Gleyber Torres looked like the rookie that he is at times in Monday’s 5-1 loss to the Houston Astros.

You can’t get picked off second base to end an inning, especially when it’s early in the game and the tying run is at the plate.

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And you can’t nonchalantly make a bad throw to first base on a routine grounder when the runner should have been out by 10 feet.

“There are moments that happen within the course of the game that are always teaching moments,” manager Aaron Boone said.

These were two for Torres, whose mostly been tremendous at the plate and in the field since he was called up from Triple-A on April 22 to make his Major League debut.

Torres, in fact, followed his mistakes by making two nifty plays at second base. 

“Whatever’s gone on in the game, whatever’s happened, I never worry about it continuing with a poor play or a great play leaking into the next one,” Boone said. “He just plays the game with that much confidence.”

Torres, 21, has been applauded for his baseball IQ and beyond-his-years maturity, but his inexperience showed in this series opener against the Astros, and both of his mistakes were costly.

“The pickoff at second kind of hurt,” Boone said.

Sure did.

So did the error.

The Yankees’ coaching staff forewarned everyone about Houston Astros righty Justin Verlander’s secret weapon. The hottest pitcher in baseball also has a very good pickoff move to second base.

And so, Torres should have played it safe in the second inning when he was on second as Miguel Andujar was hitting with two on and two out in a game Houston already lead 3-0.

“We know (Verlander) likes to spin a lot,” Boone said. “It wasn’t necessarily the good spin move, but I think (Torres) was trying to be a little too aggressive with the secondary (lead) with two outs and got caught.”

Torres strayed so far off second that he was a dead duck when Verlander spun around and basically threw a changeup to second baseman Jose Altuve.

“I know (Verlander) has a good move,” Torres said. “I didn’t wait for that move. I know it was bad for the team to maybe (cost an opportunity to) make the first runs of the game. I feel super bad for that. I will prepare for that and I will be better.”

Torres reacted to the mistakes how the Yankees knew that he would, and that’s why he wasn’t pulled aside by a coach for a quick sermon.

“Gleyber’s such a smart player,” Boone said. “I’m confident he’ll learn from that. He’ll kind of catalogue that and grow from it.”

Torres messed up again when Yuli Gurriel led off the Astros fourth by chopping a groundball behind second right at Torres, who took his time and lobbed a throw to first that pulled first baseman Greg Bird off the base for an error.

Marwin Gonzalez followed with a bloop single, then Evan Gattis doubled to drive in Gurriel and Houston tacked on an unearned run that put the Yankees in a 4-0 hole.

“Another teaching moment,” Boone said. “He’ll understand. Because he plays the game with such confidence and with such ease, sometimes when it’s really easy you can not necessarily finish the play. That’s all that was right there.”

Torres’ day wasn’t all bad. His tremendous talent was displayed on his defensive gems plus he had one of the Yankees’ five hits off Verlander, who allowed one run over 6 2/3 innings in improving to 7-2 with a 1.11 ERA.

“What I do love about (Torres) is he plays the game with so much confidence that he’s not affected,” Boone said.

Randy Miller may be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @RandyJMiller. Find NJ.com on Facebook.