The 23-year-old Sanchez belted his 18th and 19th home runs in the Yankees’ 11-5 victory on Wednesday? his 43rd game of the season – and has hit safely in six consecutive contests.
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Prior to Thursday night’s game against the Tampa Bay Rays, they were 2.5 games back of the second wild card with four teams ahead of them …
The previous record belonged to Wally Berger, who hit 17 in 1930.
On the day Masahiro Tanaka was diagnosed with a forearm strain, Luis Cessa made his seventh big league start and allowed two runs in six innings.
“I haven’t seen that sharp of a slider in a while”, Snell said.
“We don’t need to lose anymore, I can tell you that, ” Brett Gardner said of the Yanks’ situation heading into this four-game set versus the AL wild-card leaders.
Sanchez, who threw out two runners, struck out with two on in the first and walked in his next two at-bats. 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. “I felt like we were going to break through if we could just keep it close, but tonight we weren’t able to”.
Luke Weaver (1-4) allowed seven hits and six runs in two innings. Bobby Wilson went yard earlier in the frame, making Tanaka only the fifth pitcher in Yankees’ history to allow four homers in one inning.
Tampa Bay Rays second baseman Logan Forsythe, left, high fives left fielder Corey Dickerson after the Rays defeated the New York Yankees 2-0 during a baseball game Thursday, Sept. 22, 2016, in St. Petersburg, Fla. “There’s no physical questions”.
Tanaka joined Zack Greinke, Collin McHugh and Justin Verlander as the only pitchers to give up four homers in an in inning this season.
The Rays finish their final homestand of the season with three games against the first-place Boston Red Sox, while the Yankees play their next four games at Toronto.
Miller hit another solo shot in the eighth to give him 30 homers this season.
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Yankees: 3B Chase Headley was out of the lineup for the third straight game but hopes to play Thursday. Wednesday was a much different matter, however, as the Yankees had nine hits in their first 14 plate appearances in building a 7-0 lead. Tanaka’s injury obviously means that he’ll miss at least one start, though pitching coach Larry Rothschild emphasized that there’s nothing wrong with the right-hander’s ulnar collateral ligament (via ESPN New York’s Andrew Marchand).
