Results tagged ‘ Andres Torres ’

Torres back tonight?

We made it to Colorado, getting into the hotel around 2:20 in the morning and getting to bed around 3:30 after finally getting the luggage. What a trip to Chicago. Warm and breezy at Wrigley. And Juan Uribe had one of those nights. The ball just jumped off his bat. Two home runs.  Cody Ross with a no-doubter as well.  And Buster Posey in his last 13 games has four home runs. So this ball club, one thing you can count on is them going out every night and pitching. The Giants have the best pitching in baseball right now – and if the bats can stay hot, they’ll be tough to beat. 
Seems like last night’s meeting had an effect. Bochy took the hitters all under the stands at Wrigley Field and told them if they do their job, this team can go deep in the playoffs. It was very similar to the meeting Brian Sabean had with the pitchers before they went on this amazing streak – 17 games in a row giving up three earned runs or less. That’s about 150 innings of baseball without a bad inning. That’s an amazing streak.
Another good sidelight last night was getting to see Minnie Minoso, one of the great players of all time. He came up with the Cleveland Indians. Played for the Chicago White Sox back in the early ’50s. You look at his stats and he should be considered for the Hall of Fame. It was great to see him talking to Juan Uribe, who got to know Minoso when Uribe was with the White Sox. You could see the look in Uribe’s eyes, how much he admired Minnie Minoso. It was a very nice scene – and maybe had something to do with Uribe’s big night at the plate. 
Last night’s game showed how Bruce Bochy handles his veterans. Everybody played last night except The Bullet, Darren Ford, and Ryan Rohlinger and Edgar Renteria, who’s hurt, and Andres Torres. Torres is moving around really well. He took batting practice yesterday. And I would not be surprised to see him in the game tonight or certainly tomorrow.
It’s a very exciting time for this team. They’re very loose. very calm. They’re having a good time. On the Giants plane last night, Jim Moorehead of the team’s PR staff, was giving us play-by-play of the Dodger-Padres game right down to the last out – and, of course, announced that the Giants were back in first place. 
And then the Rockies-Arizona game. It was a wild one that finally ended up with the Rockies losing. They’re in a position now where they have to sweep the Giants here in Colorado to really keep their season going. They’re 31-46 on the road, and that’s been the big problem for them.
Traveling on the team plane is really interesting. Michael “Kel” King, the traveling secretary, he is like the Mad Hatter. He gets everything done. He gets everyone on and off the buses and planes. And of course Jim and his associate Matt Chisholm in the PR department, they have all the stats and all the information for you on the plane. It’s an interesting ride because you’re talking baseball all the way. You see Kruke and Kuip and Jon Miller and Dave Flemming, and they have every electronic device. They’re watching games from all over the country and it keeps the chatter going. 
And the players are very relaxed on the plane. Tim Lincecum is funny, he really is. He was wearing this purple bow tie and he’s got a hat on. He just keeps everybody very loose. And then you get the veterans like Aubrey Huff and Pat Burrell. It’s pretty much all business with them. 
This is a very good ballclub right now. They can feel it. They have these three games then come home against Arizona and the Padres – who are going to have their hands full with the Cubs in San Diego.
That’s what’s happening here. I’m heading out to the ballpark to see if I can find the humidor . . .

Andres the Giant

         Andres Torres was trying to get out of the clubhouse after Monday afternoon’s game against Colorado. He had family and friends waiting in the hallway, so he threw on clothes, shoved his wallet into his pocket and quickly pulled on his shoes. (Of course, as Giants fans know, Andres Torres tends to do everything pretty quickly.)
        Then a reporter showed up at his locker to ask a few questions. Torres smiled and looked the reporter full in the face, happy to accommodate him. Then another reporter stopped by. And another. Torres never let on he was in a hurry. It’s difficult to imagine that anyone in the Giants clubhouse appreciates his job – every part of the job, including talking to the press – more than Torres.
He is like a character in a movie. Sort of like “The Rookie” or maybe “Rocky.” In the Andres Torres movie, a career minor-leaguer bursts onto the scene at the ripe old age of 31 and suddenly becomes a star on one of the most storied teams in baseball. 
On Tuesday, he hit a home run for the Giants’ only run, and he threw out a runner at home plate to prevent the Rockies from taking the lead. On Sunday, he hit the game-winning single in the 10th inning to complete a sweep of the Diamondbacks.
        ”I live for this,” Torres says. 
        That’s why it never occurred to him to give up when he marked his 28th, 29th and 30th birthdays without spending a single day in the major leagues. He was with the peach-fuzzed kids riding the buses in Rochester, Erie, Toledo, Des Moines. In 11 years of pro baseball, he has worn 12 different uniforms – and when a TV reporter this week challenged him to name all 12, he did.
        Some guys still in the minor leagues at the age of 30 might have taken the hint. Perhaps it was time to find another line of work. 
        ”Age doesn’t matter to me,” he says. “I knew if I kept working hard and improved my hitting, I knew someday I would be here.”
        Last spring, after he signed with the Giants as a non-roster free agent, he made his first Opening Day roster. And this year, he has played his way into the everyday lineup. 
        Now for the first time, people recognize him on the street.
        ”They say, ‘Hey, Andres, good game,’ ” he says. “It makes me feel good. I really like the fans here. They appreciate what you do.”

A Game Within A Game

When Mark DeRosa’s bunt rolled past the yellow-lined target a few yards from home plate, he huffed out of the batting cage to a hail of trash talk.
“They didn’t bring me over here to bunt!” he shot back, laughing.
DeRosa was competing in the team bunting contest this afternoon, a little competition that served mostly as an opportunity to try out new insults on each other.
There were two teams: Starting pitchers vs. position players. Five players on each team. Closer Brian Wilson boycotted the whole thing, watching from a good distance with his arms crossed..
“Not worth watching if there are no relievers,” he said.
DeRosa was joined by Kevin Frandsen, Andres Torres, Pablo Sandoval and Eugenio Velez. Freddy Sanchez was offering tips to his fellow position players.
“You want to hit it right here,” Sanchez said to DeRosa and Sandoval, pointing to the fattest part of the bat. “Right here.”
By the end of the first round -the vague rules were devised and enforced by third-base coach Tim Flannery – DeRosa and Sandoval were out as were most of the pitchers. 
“You got to use ash!” Sanchez was now advising Frandsen and Torres. “Maple’s too hard.”
By the end, Frandsen was the last man standing. Not sure what he won, other than the lasting respect of Freddy Sanchez.

Quick Study

Andres Torres was waiting by the batting cage behind the Giants dugout this morning, his bat resting on his shoulder. He had already taken his swings but was back for another session before today’s game against the Diamondbacks.

“I didn’t really learn anything about hitting until I was 18,” he said. That’s when he left Puerto Rico for Miami-Dade Community College to play baseball. “I think if you don’t learn it when you’re a kid, it’s a lot tougher. I’m still learning.”

For years, Torres managed to survive in professional baseball on his speed. In 12 years, he played 89 games in the major leagues – compiling a .210 average. Until he made the Giants roster out of spring camp this year, he hadn’t worn a major-league uniform in more than three years.

“I was just fast,” Torres said. “But I didn’t know how to hit. It just took me a lot of time to learn. It took me awhile just to learn that you can’t just be fast. You’ve got to be able to swing the bat.”

He studies other batters. He takes video of himself in the batting cage and consults with hitting coach Carney Lansford. He talks to other players. In other words, he is applying to batting the kind of studiousness he has once reserved solely for running.

And perhaps no baseball player knows more about running fast than Torres. He has made the cultivation of speed his life’s work.

He studies human kinetics and physiology to understand how the body generates speed. He is a student of the books of Tudor Bompa, who writes about a training method called “periodization.” He studies videos and training regimens of Olympic sprinters like Asafa Powell of Jamaica. He scours the internet for the latest techniques.

Even at 31, he’s the fastest guy on the Giants – and Eugenio Velez is no slouch.

“Age doesn’t matter if you work at it,” Torres said.

Friday night, his two passions came together.

He hit a pinch-hit solo home run in the eighth inning Friday night in a 2-0 win against the Diamondbacks. It was only the second homer of his ML career.

Almost by instinct, he flew around the bases so fast that he reached home plate before the relief pitchers — watching the game in a room behind the dugout – had reached the field.

More on Torres in a later blog . . .

· Saw Joe Martinez today in the clubhouse. He looks amazingly good. He said the only symptom of the hit to his head is fatigue. He’s tired a lot, he says, but he thinks it might just be from lying around. “You get tired when you’re not doing anything,” Martinez said. “So I don’t really think it has anything to do with the injury.”

 

 

I’m leaving the press box to watch the game from my seats in Section 109 . . .

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