BOSTON — Luis Severino was playfully criticizing his friend and former teammate, but he wasn’t gossiping.
Gleyber Torres was in the text thread where Severino said he wasn’t afraid of the Yankees because “right now they only have two good hitters.”
Severino was making fun of his close friends, but a good joke often carries some truth.
And the truth is, it was a terrible signing season for Torres.
But if there’s any hope of a third home run for a team that’s relied too heavily on Aaron Judge and Juan Soto, the best prospect is Torres, who is just 27 and isn’t far from being one of the best second basemen in baseball.
The Yankees and Torres are hopeful he’s starting to turn things around.
Torres has been his old self since being benched for two games in late June for what manager Aaron Boone called a “reset.” Those games came after a tough start and a particularly tough game in a loss to the Mets in which Torres made a crucial error and failed to hit a ground ball.
In 80 games before the hiatus, Torres batted .215 with a .628 OPS.
He improved those numbers to .237 and .681, respectively, over his next 19 games, including three hits in five at-bats and a double in the Yankees’ 9-7 loss to the Red Sox on Friday night.
“Hopefully, these little wins will help stabilize our guys,” Boone said before the start of the series at Fenway Park. “When you have a year where you’re not comparable to what you’ve done in the past … the games are really tough, it’s really tough mentally, you’re battling different things and trying to make adjustments.”
“But sometimes it’s those little things that snowball and make you successful and get you back to being the player we know you are.”
Boone spoke with Torres last week and reminded him of the kind of player he is: a two-time All-Star and arguably the Yankees’ most consistent hitter until last season.
Torres struggled for the first three months of this season, slipping from leadoff hitter to lower in the order.
With hitters other than Judge and Soto performing poorly recently, attention has been focused on Torres, who is in good form and is the type of slugger who can defend the lineup well.
Torres was promoted to leadoff hitter on Wednesday and slid into fifth on Friday.
“I thought he’d played well the last few days,” Boone said of Torres. “And [Wednesday]”I felt his energy was good. His presence in the box was good.”
Personally, it has been the most important season of his career and his numbers are starting to rise again.
Torres will become a free agent at the end of the year, and his performance in the second half of this season will play a big role in what contract offers he receives.
During the Subway Series, Severino looked up at the scoreboard and saw Torres’ performance.
Severino hasn’t had much time to watch the Yankees because of his busy schedule with the Mets, but he saw that Torres, then a right-hander for the Yankees, was having a similar contract season to Severino’s own last year, when he posted a 6.65 ERA.
Severino plans to discuss free agency with Torres at some point.
If Torres continues to perform well, that conversation will become much lighter.
“We haven’t talked about it yet,” Severino said, “but I think the opportunity will come, maybe in the offseason after everything is finished.”
