NEW YORK _ About 46,000 people came to Yankee Stadium on Friday night to take part in the Shohei Ohtani Experience _ to see, in person, the two-way player who has set baseball on its ear and become a point of fascination from Anaheim all the way to the Bronx.
But while those 46,056 members of the Yankees' fifth sellout crowd of the year kicked off their long weekend looking for Ohtani _ who served as the DH on Friday but will not pitch in this series _ they left with the knowledge that the Yankees have something pretty special brewing themselves.
Gleyber Torres _ whose offensive statistics bear a striking resemblance to Ohtani's _ hit a tiebreaking home run in the seventh inning as the Yankees defeated the Angels, 2-1. Torres also drove in the Yankees' first run of the game with an infield hit.
It was Torres' fourth straight game with a home run, making him the youngest player in American League history to accomplish that feat (21 years, 163 days). Torres is the fourth-youngest player in the modern era, dating to 1900, to homer in four straight games, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. He has nine home runs and 24 RBIs in his first 96 major-league at-bats, including six home runs and 12 RBIs in 23 at-bats in the last six games.
Ohtani went 0-for-3 and drew a walk against Luis Severino in the seventh. He grounded out against Aroldis Chapman to end the eighth and sent hordes of fans streaming for the exits.
Before that, the story _ and the theatrics _ belonged to Torres and Torres alone.
With the score tied at 1 and one out in the seventh, the Angels replaced starter Andrew Heaney with Jim Johnson, and the Yankees got to work. Miguel Andujar hit a soft liner to second for the second out, but Johnson served up a 3-and-1 two-seamer to Torres, who smacked it 418 feet to right-center.
"It's incredible," Severino said of Torres. "I feel like every time we call somebody up, they (produce) _ Sanchez, Judge, Andujar and now Gleyber ... He's so young and so talented."
A replay challenge led to the Yankees' first run in the second. With one on and none out, Didi Gregorius hit into a double play, but a review showed that Gregorius beat the throw to first. Heaney then sandwiched walks to Aaron Hicks and Andujar around Tyler Austin's strikeout to load the bases for Torres.
Torres hit a hard grounder inside the third-base line that was grabbed by a sprawling Zack Cozart, who briefly thought about trying for the force at third before making a difficult throw to first that ended up wide. Gregorius scored, but Albert Pujols threw out Hicks at the plate when he tried to score.
With runners on first and second and two outs in the third, Justin Upton singled to right, but Aaron Judge threw a bullet that hit Gary Sanchez on the fly to cut down Kole Calhoun at the plate. The close play was upheld upon review. It was one of Judge's two outfield assists: The second came in the seventh, when he got Martin Maldonado trying to stretch a single off the wall into a double.
The Angels tied the score in the fifth when Mike Trout hit a solo shot into the second deck in right for his 16th homer. That's all they'd get off Severino, though, who was reliably proficient: He allowed four hits and four walks in six innings, striking out five, and lowered his ERA to 2.28.
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