Ronald Torreyes Is Red Hot!

I absolutely love watching Ronald Torreyes play baseball!  Over the years, I always seem to gravitate toward the little guy who contributes to a team of giants because for years as a kid in Little League, I was that guy. Bunting my way to get on, a singles hitter primarily, but made sure I was always in scoring position and ready to contribute in some way.  I was important to me that I let my coaches know what I could do.  Torreyes is that way. 

When I watched the Yankees play in the early 90′s, I loved watching a Yankee shortstop by the name of Andy Stankiewicz play for instance.  The last few weeks, I’ve been keeping an eye on Ronald Torreyes.  There are undertones of Stanky… it gives me a flutter in my stomach.  I oddly reminds me of the youth movement of the New York Yankees all those years ago.  Don’t forget… after Stanky came a guy named Tony Fernandez, and then of course… Derek Jeter.

Torreyes is a small framed, hardworking ballplayer and I feel like every game he’s playing, he’s either making a dynamic play at 3rd base, scoring or hitting a triple.  I wrote about him last night:

Don’t under estimate Ronald Torreyes. The dude can play.

— Robert Casey (@BleednYankeeBlu) August 27, 2016

Lo Hud had alittle nugget about Torreyes as well:

“He is, remarkably, the Yankees’ everyday third baseman these days. He’s started five of the past seven games, largely because he hit 9 for 16 during the past week’s West Coast road trip.

‘We’re riding a hot hand, is what we’re doing,’ manager Joe Girardi said. ‘We got a pretty good idea of what he is, but he was on fire on that trip. He had 10, 11 hits, something like that. So we’re riding a hot hand.’”

And last night, Torreyes was 2-4 with 2 runs scored and 1 RBI.   And the best part is Torreyes isn’t a member of the youth movement that the Yankees groomed by draft.  He came over from the Dodgers, a 23 year old these days willing to do whatever he can to help.  This season, in 98 at bats he has 6 doubles, 3 triples and 1 home run batting .286.  While those number don’t appear to be All-Star numbers, it’s clear he’s a singles hitter, just add them up and he’s helping his club by getting on base any chance he can. An unselfish player… dedicated to “Team.”

And right about now, with guys like Gary Sanchez, Mark Teixeira, Jacoby Ellsbury, Tyler Austin, Brett Gardner and Aaron Judge surrounding him to knock runs in… this is the type of mix we need.  Youth, mixed in with veterans, the perfect formula.

It’s funny.  The Yankees did this once… it was right around 1993… 1994… 1995. 

In 1996… they won the whole damn thing. 

Food for thought.