NEW YORK _ Aaron Boone had stocked his lineup with right-handed bats on Thursday night, resting Didi Gregorius, Greg Bird and Brett Gardner against Tampa Bay Rays lefty Blake Snell.
And in doing so, the Yankees manager elevated rookie Gleyber Torres from his usual No. 9 spot to No. 5 in the order.
So, here was a gift to that segment of Yankees Universe wondering when Torres' middle-of-the-order production might warrant a higher placement on Boone's lineup card.
Torres responded accordingly, belting a go-ahead, three-run homer that sent the Yankees toward a 4-3 victory before 45,066 fans.
And that fifth-inning blast boosted fellow rookie Domingo German to his first big-league win, coming in his seventh start this season.
German struck out a career-high 10 batters over six innings, with Chad Green, Dellin Betances and Aroldis Chapman blanking the Rays (32-36) from there.
It was another nice rebound for German (1-4), who yielded a homer to Matt Duffy on the game's first pitch.
In all, German was charged with three runs on five hits and two walks in a 91-pitch effort.
The Yankees (44-20) were trailing 2-0 heading into the fifth, when Aaron Hicks' opposite-field, one-out homer put their first point on the board.
"It seems like the last week the hitting's been a bit sluggish in certain areas," Yankees managing general partner Hal Steinbrenner had remarked a day earlier. "But you cant complain about the record, right?"
No, but Steinbrenner was on to something.
His club had three more hitless at-bats with runners in scoring position, extending their RISP woes to 3-for-50 as Torres came to bat in the fifth.
After Hicks' seventh homer of the year, Aaron Judge singled and Gary Sanchez walked _ sandwiching a Giancarlo Stanton strikeout.
Stanton (0-for-4, two strikeouts, double play grounder) heard the boos again after getting three hits on Wednesday night.
But with two out, Torres worked the count full on a seven-pitch at-bat before launching his 13th homer of the year.
Torres's second homer in two nights landed into the lower left field seats, giving the Yanks a 4-2 lead.
After being benched the previous two nights, Sanchez returned to the lineup _ and back behind the plate _ on Thursday with mixed results.
Sanchez (0-for-2) struck out his first time up and walked in his next two plate appearances before popping up in his last at-bat.
He also had a rough sixth inning, but rebounded in the seventh.
Sanchez was charged with an error, prolonging C.J. Cron's time at-bat, for dropping a foul pop that first baseman Neil Walker should have handled easily.
Also in the sixth, a German wild pitch was a borderline passed ball and the runner eventually scored � cutting the Yanks' lead to 4-3.
With two hits in his last 31 at-bats, and without a homer in nearly a month, Sanchez might be "a little frustrated and upset that he's not dominating, which is to be expected," Boone said before the game, though he doesn't see a player in a confidence crisis.
Boone does see a hitter that's chasing after some pitches he normally lets go by.
As a former big-league hitter, "trust me, you start chasing those results a little too much," Boone said.
But overall, "I think what I see is what everyone sees and knows about Gary Sanchez," Boone said. "This guy can really hit. And at 25 years old ... he's always hit."
Sanchez's batting average has now dropped below .190, but "that's not going to go, in my opinion, into a season-long kind of situation," Boone said. "He's too good, he's too talented and the integrity of the season will play itself out and he'll get it rolling.
"And even with what I've seen where he's struggled these last couple of weeks, I feel like he's in position a fair amount of the time to impact the ball," Boone said. "I feel like he's just missing pitches that he normally would do damage with."
