Yankees put Gleyber Torres on injury list

Yankees announced they are placing the shortstop Gleyber Torres on the 10-day injured list with a sprained left thumb. Utility André Velasquez was selected from the list in a corresponding movement.

Torres suffered an injury diving into the second base sack in the fourth inning of yesterday’s game against the Mariners. A few frames remained before being pulled out for a defensive replacement at the top of the ninth. Torres was sent in for an MRI after the game, with manager Aaron Boone acknowledging that the team feared this was a noticeable issue. There is no indication at this point that Torres will have to miss anything beyond the ten-day minimum, but the injury is apparently serious enough that the organization will shut him down for next week and beyond.

It comes at an unfortunate time for Torres, who had warmed up to his plate for the past two weeks after a below-par first half. Overall, the 24-year-old is .253 / .328 / .351 with six homers in 407 home plate appearances this season. Torres’ power generation has largely evaporated over the past two years, but he had shown signs of life coming out of the All-Star Break. Torres has made three home runs and hit 0.300 / 0.337 / 0.500 in his last 90 home plate appearances.

With Torres landing on the IL, the Yankees have quite an unbelievably twenty players on the injured list at the moment. A few of those players are expected to return in the next few days after testing positive for COVID-19, but New York will have to cope for now without lineup regulars such as Torres, Gio Urshela, Gary Sanchez and Antoine Rizzo – as well as key starters Gerrit Cole and Jordan montgomery. It’s particularly unfortunate for a Yankees club 2.5 games away from the Red Sox for the last place in the American League playoffs.

Torres, Urshela and Tyler wade are the only players to see shortstop action for the Yankees this season. Now it looks like Wade and the switch hitting Velazquez could cover the position. Velazquez, who signed a deal with the minor leagues in the offseason, has a .156 / .257 / .219 line in 113 appearances in the big league between 2018-20. He had a very strong season at Triple-A Scranton / Wilkes-Barre, however, cutting .283 / .367 / 0.471 while registering significant action at each of the shortstops, second and third bases.