Torres homers twice of Colon as Yankees beat Rangers 8-5
ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) Gleyber Torres was only three months old when Bartolo Colon made his major league debut.
Now Torres is a rookie second baseman helping the New York Yankees in a power stretch never accomplished by past Bronx Bombers - none of those teams with Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris or Reggie Jackson.
Torres hit two of the four Yankees homers off Colon, and they had five overall in a 10-5 win Monday night at Texas. New York has at least four homers in three consecutive games for the first time in franchise history, and is the first MLB team to do that since the Rangers in May 2011.
''We have a lot of really good hitters, a lot of power, so I'm not surprised when we do these kind of things, but obviously it's hard to keep that kind of pace,'' manager Aaron Boone said. ''It just shows you how difficult that is, and obviously how rare it is.''
No. 9 hitter Torres, playing his 25th career game, had a two-run homer in the second. His solo shot in the sixth, his sixth homer already, ended Colon's bid for a milestone victory only three days before his 45th birthday.
''The lineup is awesome. Everybody does their job,'' Torres said. ''I just try to help my team too, try to put in something, hit or defense too.''
Colon (2-2), whose big league debut was on April 4, 1997, allowed six runs and eight hits in 5 1-3 innings in his 178th career loss. The portly right-hander remained one win short of matching Hall of Fame pitcher Juan Marchial's 243 victories, the most by a player born in the Dominican Republic.
''He gave up the home runs, two of them to a young guy that seems to be very hot right now,'' manager Jeff Banister said.
Aaron Judge and Neil Walker also went deep against Colon. Judge's 12th homer, leading off the fifth, snapped a 4-all tie and put the Yankees ahead to stay. Aaron Hicks added a two-run homer in the ninth for New York, which had a season-high 10 extra-base hits with only two singles.
''It's awesome, it's fun,'' Hicks said. ''We can attack from the top to the bottom, and everybody contributes.''
Masahiro Tanaka (5-2) limited the Texas to three hits over five innings, but walked four and gave up two homers. The right-hander struck out three.
''Saw some encouraging signs,'' Boone said. ''I didn't think he had his split to get his chases with to put guys away, and that's why it was a little bit of a grind for him.''
Joey Gallo's 14th homer led off the Texas second. Rougned Odor's three-run blast, his first this season, tied the game at 4 in the fourth. Ronald Guzman hit a second-deck shot to start the Rangers seventh against reliever Chad Green. Gallo, Odor and Guzman all went into the game hitting under .200 - though Gallo is now at .201.
GOING DEEP
Torres' first multihomer game was the MLB-best 12th for the Yankees. The MLB single-season record of 24 individual multi-homer games is held by the 1961 Yankees and 1966 Braves. ... The combined eight homers averaged 420 feet, according to MLB stats. The longest was Judge's 436-footer, and the only under 415 feet was Hicks' 369-footer.
EXTRA EXTRA
The Yankees won 10-1 at Kansas City on Sunday, when they had tied their previous season high with eight extra-base hits (two doubles, two triples, four homers). The Yankees also had a season-high five homers Saturday, and have 72 overall. ... Yankees SS Didi Gregorious was in a 1-for-48 slide before an RBI double in the sixth. ... Four of the five Texas hits were for extra bases.
TRAINER'S ROOM
Yankees: RHP Tommy Kahnle (right shoulder) won't rejoin the team in Texas, but Boone said he could be ready to return from the DL for the first time in more than a month when the Yankees are back home next weekend.
Rangers: SS Elvis Andrus (broken right elbow) started throwing during the weekend in Chicago and hopes to start swinging the bat by the end of this week. The broken elbow is on his non-throwing arm. Andrus said his goal is to ready to rejoin the Rangers on June 11, when he's eligible to be reinstated from the disabled list.
UP NEXT
Cole Hamels (2-4) makes his first start for the Rangers in 11 days, and New York rookie right-hander Domingo German (0-1) pitches for the first time in 10 days. Hamels was skipped his last turn in the rotation because of neck stiffness. German was backed up because of a strange schedule, when the Yankees already had two scheduled off days this week before the first game of their series at Washington was suspended before a rainout the next day.
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