When Yankees expect Gleyber Torres back, how they’ll fill his void

Rookie second baseman Gleyber Torres talked about his hip injury before the Yankees’ game against the Blue Jays on Friday night in Toronto.

TORONTO — Yankees second baseman Gleyber Torres walked through the visiting clubhouse at Rogers Centre on Friday afternoon looking healthy.

There was no hint that the rookie is nursing a right hip strain that landed him on the 10-day disabled list after Wednesday’s home win over the Atlanta Braves.

Yankees, Blue Jays lineups for Friday

And …

“I feel super good,” Torres said before the Yankees began a weekend series against the Toronto Blue Jays with Neil Walker starting at second base and infielder Tyler Wade up from Triple-A to fill his roster spot.

Not surprisingly however, the Yankees are taking it very, very cautious with their young star, who for the time being has been told to rest. And nothing is expected to change treatment wise this weekend.

Torres is hoping that he’ll be permitted to resume baseball activities on Monday before the Yankees play a doubleheader in Baltimore and he’d like to be playing minor-league rehab games before the All-Star break commences after next weekend’s series in Cleveland.

“I’m feeling better every day, so I’ll hopefully come back fast,” Torres said.

Torres was surprised and disappointed his hip tightness led to a DL stint.

“I don’t like it for sure,” he said. “But the most important thing for me is to come back healthy and strong and not try to come back too fast.”

The Yankees are hopeful of a quick recovery, too, but it might be pushing it for Torres being ready for the first game back from the All-Star break, a July 20 Subway Series game against the Mets.

“I think it’s going to be on the shorter side of things, but we’ve got to get through these next few days and he’s not going to start really doing any activities until that irritation is completely out of there,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “Once that is (gone), we can start ramping him up and he can move quickly from there. I think it’s minor enough to where it’s not going to be a long thing, but we certainly won’t push it or rush it.”

Meantime, the Yankees plan to fill Torres’ void with Walker getting a lot of starts at second and Brandon Drury seeing some action there against left-handed pitching. Wade figures to get some time there, as well.

Drury has just played third and first this season, but he was Arizona’s starter at second last season and he took groundballs there on Friday.

There could be a big drop-off offensively without Torres, who is hitting .294 with 15 homers and 42 RBI in 63 games.

Walker went into the weekend batting .188 with two homers and 13 RBI in 53 games, Drury was batting .188 with one homer and five RBI in 12 games and Wade was just 3 for 35 at the plate in a big-league stint early this season.

“We’ll just kind of day-by-day the matchups and see how things are going,” Boone said. “I would expect though Walker would get some significant playing time.”

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