Mandatory Credit: Gregory Fisher-USA TODAY Sports

Two series in, two series wins.

The Yankees continued a strong start to the season with their second consecutive series win, this time over the Phillies. New York took advantage of the defending National League champions’ slow start and looked well-paced in two of three wins.

The bats are slowly waking up as the lineup gives a true collaborative effort. At-bats are consistently good. Pitching continues to be the team’s biggest strength, though the Phillies are certainly better than their 1-5 start.

Some takeaways:

Gleyber Day leads the way. One of the Yankees’ biggest surprises early on has been Gleyber Torres, whose name has a knack for finding its way into trade rumors. The second baseman hit .666 with a home run and four RBI in three games and set the pace from the heart of the lineup. Torres also struck out just once in the series.

The shift ban and thus not losing base hits up the middle has done wonders for Torres’ confidence at the plate. He’s batting .421, fourth in the AL, and his 1.349 OPS ranks tenth. His wRC+ is at 238, 138 above the league average.

He’ll regress at some point but this early portion of the season has reminded us how good a contact hitter Torres actually is. Soft hands and flicks of the wrist are finally letting him use the whole field, and to both his and the Yankees’ benefit.

Phillies miss their big bats. Philadelphia scored seven runs on 26 hits across three games in the Bronx. They also did a pretty good job making hard contact all series. How could they hit so much and score so little?

Simple. This lineup really misses Rhys Hoskins and star outfielder Bryce Harper. Hoskins is out for the season with an ACL tear, though Harper is taking batting practice while recovering from Tommy John surgery. They’ve combined for 198 home runs in four years as teammates. That power was sorely missed in Philadelphia’s lineup this series.

This is a different series if one or both of Harper or Hoskins are available inside hitter-friendly Yankee Stadium.

Who anchors the lower lineup? This was most prominent in Tuesday’s 4-1 loss but the second half of the Yankees’ lineup is proving an issue again. Isiah Kiner-Falefa is still ineffective and not only is Aaron Hicks the same, but ineffective. Josh Donaldson is also struggling and just suffered a hamstring injury.

Granted, New York’s offense should get better soon. Oswaldo Cabrera hasn’t hit his stride yet, nor has rookie Anthony Volpe. Harrison Bader could be days away from returning from a strained oblique. Until then, the top half of the lineup will carry the load and we can only hope the Yankees don’t have to grind out too many wins too early.

Follow ESNY on Twitter @elitesportsny

Josh Benjamin has been a staff writer at ESNY since 2018. He has had opinions about everything, especially the Yankees and Knicks. He co-hosts the “Bleacher Creatures” podcast and is always looking for new pieces of sports history to uncover, usually with a Yankee Tavern chicken parm sub in hand.