Visits: 2
BOSTON — As the ball landed safely in the Red Sox bullpen on Saturday, Gleyber Torres waved his right fist in the air, glanced toward the Yankees dugout and smiled as he rounded the bases. It was a small gesture to commemorate a big moment.
Torres had just hit the Yankees’ 265th home run of the season, breaking a tie with the 1997 Seattle Mariners for the most home runs by a major league team in a season.
Torres was batting ninth in the Yankees’ 8-5 victory over the Red Sox on Saturday — their 100th win of the season — and his spot in the lineup meant the Yankees had another major league record. They became the first team to hit at least 20 home runs at all nine positions in the batting order.
That Torres struck the record blow from the ninth spot was appropriate because the Yankees rely on more than a couple of gargantuan thumpers in the middle of the order. This record was achieved as a team, and players like Torres and his fellow rookie Miguel Andujar have been critical factors in the onslaught.
“It’s fitting that one of our young studs got it done,” Manager Aaron Boone said.
Of course, Giancarlo Stanton and Aaron Judge, last year’s home run leaders in each league, contributed mightily to the haul. But they did not lead a lopsided charge to the record.
Stanton homered on Saturday, too, pushing the grand total to 266 with one game to play, and he leads the Yankees with 38 home runs. The night before, Judge hit the record-tying homer. It was his 27th of the season, and it tied him with three other Yankees — Andujar, Didi Gregorius and Aaron Hicks.
The Yankees have six players with at least 20 home runs, including Torres, who has 24. Gary Sanchez, who has played in only 88 games because of injury, has 18.
“The fact that it’s come from so many different people is the cool thing,” Boone said. “If you would have told us at the beginning of the year that we would break that record, you would have probably thought Giancarlo was hitting 50 or 60, Judgie is hitting 50 or 60, Gary is hitting. But because of injuries and different things, that hasn’t been the case.”
The record seemed virtually destined to fall as far back as Dec. 11. That was when the Yankees acquired Stanton in a trade from the Miami Marlins.
Stanton had slammed 59 home runs the year before, and he was about to join a lineup that already had a 52-homer hitter in Judge. The 2017 Yankees had pounded 241 home runs, so a couple of dozen more seemed virtually inevitable, especially given the dimensions of Yankee Stadium, the increasing emphasis on launch angles and long balls, and all the mediocre pitching that the Yankees could feast on.
Speaking to the YES Network shortly after the trade, Stanton expressed sympathy for the poor baseballs that would be disfigured from the blows of Yankees lumber.
“We’ve got 266 that are screaming, still,” Stanton said on Saturday.
The most recent one got a small measure of revenge, though. It struck Stanton back. As implausible as that sounds, a fan in the seats above Fenway’s Green Monster retrieved the ball and heaved it back onto the field, where it struck Stanton on the right arm on a bounce as he rounded second base.
Initially surprised, Stanton glanced up at the seats and gave the strong-armed fan — who was ejected from the game — a small salute. Stanton did not seem too bothered. Such is the plight of a team that hits more home runs than any other.
“That could be a special ball, and we needed it anyway,” Stanton said. “I think he lost some money on it.”
The Yankees’ multidimensional power is perhaps best personified by Luke Voit, a late-season addition who has hit 13 home runs in his first 38 games for the Yankees, after hitting only five for St. Louis in 70 games over the last two seasons.
“We’ve got a lot of guys on this team with a lot of thump,” Judge said on Friday. “They’ve been doing it all year, especially after we added Voit, and what he’s been doing for us has been huge.”
Voit became the 12th player to hit 10 or more home runs for the Yankees, giving the team the most double-digit home run hitters by a team in a season. The Yankees also established a major league mark by hitting a home run every 20.62 at-bats.
But what does it all mean?
The 1997 Mariners know. That team was more top-heavy than these Yankees. Ken Griffey Jr. hit 56 home runs for them that year, back when 50 home runs was a rare feat. Jay Buhner hit 40, and Paul Sorrento had 31. Seattle also had a 23-home-run hitter named Alex Rodriguez.
Joey Cora, the Mariners’ second baseman that year, contributed 11 home runs. His brother Alex Cora is the rookie manager of the Red Sox.
The verdict on Cora’s first season at the helm could hinge on his team’s ability to suppress the Yankees’ sluggers in a potential best-of-five division series — provided the Yankees beat the Oakland Athletics on Wednesday in the Bronx in the American League wild-card game.
“When they hit the ball out of the ballpark on a consistent basis, it’s tough to beat them,” said Cora, whose team has 107 wins and home-field advantage throughout the playoffs.
But Cora also knows that his brother ’97 team, even with all those home runs, lost its division series to the Baltimore Orioles. Swatting home runs at a record pace does not guarantee a World Series appearance.
The 2009 champion Yankees hit 244 home runs in the regular season, which is tied for the 11th place. But none of the top 10 home-run-hitting teams won the World Series. This deep Yankees lineup aims to be the first.
“Sometimes, home runs get a bad rap from an approach standpoint, but you have to be doing a lot of things right to hit the ball out of the ballpark,” Boone said, adding: “It’s played a big part for us. I enjoy seeing the ball fly over the fence.”
INSIDE PITCH
Major League Baseball has suspended C. C. Sabathia for five games next season for hitting Jesus Sucre of the Tampa Bay Rays with a pitch on Thursday while warnings were in place. Sabathia said he understood but is appealing the decision. M.L.B. also suspended Rays pitcher Andrew Kittredge for three games in 2019, for throwing a pitch close to Austin Romine’s head in the same game … Miguel Andujar hit two doubles, giving him 46 as he passed Joe DiMaggio for the most doubles by a Yankees rookie. DiMaggio had 44 in 1936. … The Yankees scratched pitcher Luis Severino from Sunday’s start to keep him available for the wild-card playoff game.