TORONTO — Gleyber Torres arrived north of the border in the midst of a “mental reset” and returned to the States as one of the Yankees’ hotter hitters.
Torres racked up his third straight two-hit game on Sunday in the Yankees’ 8-1 win over the Blue Jays and is now 6-for-13 since returning from his two-day benching — which he entered in a 2-for-29 slump.
“Feels good,” Torres said. “Just day-to-day and try to be focused every time I go to home plate now. Just enjoy. All my boys give me motivation, because they’re grinding every at-bat. I just want to be part of those at-bats and try to do the little things.”
Torres acknowledged feeling like the two days off have helped him.
He spent them working on his swing in the cage, but manager Aaron Boone also wanted him to mentally reset after his struggles had been weighing on him.
“One thing I know is Gleyber can hit,” Boone said. “To my core, I feel like that’s going to happen. He had an outstanding three days of at-bats here. Even today, yeah he got a couple hits, but smoked another ball to center, just missed a ball to right.
“He’s having the kind of Gleyber at-bats that’s good to see because we need that. Hopefully he can carry that into the homestand.”
After Gerrit Cole drilled Vladimir Guerrero Jr. on the right hand with a 97 mph fastball in the third inning, Blue Jays starter Kevin Gausman appeared to retaliate by hitting Aaron Judge with a fastball on his back in the fourth.
But the situation never escalated.
The Yankees had some debate about pushing back Luis Gil or skipping his start after coming off two straight clunkers, but instead he will stay on turn and start Tuesday’s series opener against the Reds.
Before the game, the Yankees designated reliever Phil Bickford for assignment and called up lefty Josh Maciejewski.
Bickford was roughed up on Saturday, giving up five runs on four hits and a walk across one-third of an inning.
Maciejewski flew to Toronto on Sunday morning and got his “pregame” throwing in during the top of the second inning — briefly giving a scare that something might be amiss with Cole — before tossing a scoreless ninth inning.
The Yankees transferred JT Brubaker’s rehab assignment to Double-A Somerset, where he made his third rehab start Sunday, throwing three scoreless innings.
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