Sanchez has 19 home runs in his first 45 career games, setting a new standard as the fastest player to hit that many.
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The Tampa Bay Rays (64-87) were defeated by the New York Yankees (79-72) 11-5 on Tuesday night.
He now has 17 homers in 42 games this year, and his 17 HR over his first 44 major league games ties the Boston Braves’ Wally Berger – from 1930 – with the most in history in that short of a span.
“That’s what this club does”, manager Joe Girardi said.
“It’s not that I’ve lost faith in Tyler”, Girardi said before the game.
You should start to ask yourself: “am I even surprised, anymore?” The four home runs in an inning set a Rays record.
Billy Butler has hits in his first five games as a member of the New York Yankees, the best streak to start a career in pinstripes in more than two years.
Sanchez has also hit his share of important home runs. Sanchez is hitting.337 with 19 homers and 38 RBI in 43 games this season, posting an outlandish 1.157 OPS.
That win, combined with Baltimore’s loss to the Boston Red Sox, leaves the Yankees 2 1/2 games back of the second American League wild-card position with 11 games to play.
After a 9-17 start, NY struggled to significantly elevate themselves above a.500 record for most of the first half, forcing a “reshuffling” of the deck, to use Yankees General Manager Brian Cashman’s phrase.
After taking a brief rest in early September, Yankees rookie Gary Sanchez is back to being the most unsafe hitter in the American League in the second half. Manager Kevin Cash said that he and first baseman Logan Morrison spent part of Wednesday’s game chatting on the bench, trying to figure out if they’d seen anyone make such a splash on the big league level. That hasn’t been the case of late for Rays rookie lefty Blake Snell, who has lasted five innings just once in his last five starts. The homer gave the Yankees an 8-4 lead. Brad Miller followed by hitting one out to right and then Corey Dickerson sent a blast to center, as Tampa Bay went back-to-back-to-back and the Yankees once insurmountable lead had shrunk to 7-4.
Fernandez (16-8) allowed three hits without a walk to outduel Washington’s Tanner Roark (15-9) who pitched seven innings and allowed one run. “It shows you that obviously he has an idea of what he wants to do, he has a very good eye and he recognizes pitches early”.
But Sanchez has eight homers in his last 12 games after his third multi-homer game of the year. Brad Miller is at 128 hits with 70 runs, 30 homers and 77 RBI.
“I think you’ve got to think about it, you really do”, Girardi said. NY jumped out to a 7-0 lead in the first two innings, then held off the Rays (64-87), who inched back with five solo home runs.
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The Yankees tacked on three runs in the ninth – two on Donovan Solano’s first home run as a Yankee – to give Dellin Betances the night off as Jonathan Holder finished up in the ninth.
