Sanchez hit his 17th home run of the season – a three-run moonshot that traveled 439 feet – in Tuesday’s 5-3 win over the Tampa Bay Rays, helping to momentarily quell the Yankees’ recent struggles and keep them mathematically alive in the playoff race.
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“I think you have to think about it, I really do”, Yankees Manager Joe Girardi told reporters.
“I’ve never seen anything like it”, said teammate Brian McCann.
Baltimore is losing to the Red Sox, which means the Yankees might have missed an opportunity to pull within a game and a half of the second wild card. NY would also have to jump over the Mariners, Astros and Tigers to earn a post-season berth. But the argument that Sanchez does not deserve the award because he has not played enough does not hold water.
There’s not many better ways to wash away a week of devastating losses than yet another Gary Sanchez home run and a smooth victory; the latter they so dearly needed after blowing the lead on a regular basis in the past seven losses. Wally Berger, with the Boston Braves in 1930, went deep 19 times in his first 51 games.
But coming off Monday’s off-day and with Billy Butler now serving as the designated hitter against lefty starters, “I thought I’d put Teix in” at first base, Girardi said.
While there’s clearly something to be said for Fulmer’s staying-power, Sanchez’s impact has been so overwhelming that he has proven to be more than a flash in the pan.
Teixeira would redeem himself later in the game, though, when he obliterated a high-and-inside fastball from Drew Smyly into the left field seats for a solo home run, his thirteenth of the year.
Tanaka (14-4) won his seventh straight decision.
Against fastballs he is 26-for-84 (.310) with eight home runs.
Whitley gave up two hits in 2 2/3 innings, and has allowed one unearned run, three hits and struck out six over 6 2/3 innings in three relief appearances. “So, it was a grind”.
Brad Miller had an RBI single in the first after Logan Forsythe led off with a catchable popup to right field that Aaron Hicks allowed to drop in front of him for a hit.
Michael Pineda exited with an out in the bottom of the sixth, two runs to his name.
“No concerns with the elbow”, Cobb said. “I’m very confident that I should be able to get back soon”. “There’s no physical questions”. NY won the first two games of the three-game series and now head to Toronto for a key four-game series.
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Rays: OF Steven Souza Jr. had left hip surgery and is expected to be ready for spring training. The Yankees can now only pencil in Tanaka, Michael Pineda and CC Sabathia to next year’s rotation, and while that trio somewhat incredibly has combined to make 89 starts so far this season, there are notable injury concerns with each of the group, making it hard to assume they’ll be able to replicate that feat in 2017.
