Virtual Baseball: Four by Four! Gleyber Ties Homer Mark as Yankees Net, Club Birds Once More!

In yet another four-hour slugfest at the Stadium tonight, the virtual New York Yankees came home to find a fine, plump Bird, fricasseed and waiting.  But this one was something special, as professional Oriole-slaughterer Gleyber Torres ran completely amok tonight, tying the all-time major-league record for home runs in a game, with four.

Torres homered in the first, third, fifth, and eight innings, while also singling in the sixth and seventh to finish at 6-6, hauling the Yanks to a 12-8 win.  Afterwards, Gleyber shrugged off his performance as "Just how I play against Baltimore.  Doesn't everybody?"

Torres' extraordinary performance also saw him drive in 9 runs, steal two bases, and start a spectacular double-play that bailed out reliever Adam Ottavino in the top of the seventh.  Ottavino, who pitched two innings of wobbly relief, still got the win.  Yankees' starter J.A. Happ, who has been the team's best pitcher this year, had an off-night, leaving after five innings of play with the score still tied, 6-6.

But it was just a matter of time before Torres, "El Conquistador," as Yankees fans have dubbed him, struck again.  His first two home runs traveled to deep left field, one of them clanging off the foul pole, while one was an opposite-field poke that just got over the fence in right, and the final, game-clinching past a bomb to straightaway center, that smacked off the glass of the new, Pangolin Palace Exotic Chinese Food restaurant that just opened at the Stadium.

In celebration, each patron was treated to a free, Pangolin brains appetizer, and a selection of fried bats.

Gio Urshela and Clint Frazier joined the Yanks' long men's room line of home run hitters tonight, while Gary Sanchez drew four walks.

The win was the eight straight for New York over Baltimore this season, and the Pinstripers' ninth in a row.  The Orioles are now 27 games out of first place, in the team's third straight season of abject tanking, after having attained heights for several seasons that put them above obvious mediocrity.