Yogi Berra and Bill Dickey reside in the Hall of Fame. Thurman Munson and Elston Howard collected MVP awards. Jorge Posada earned five All-Star Game invitations.
Gary Sanchez has never played more than 122 games in a season. Yet he has traveled — twice — where so many legendary Yankees catchers have never been.
For the second time in his three full seasons, Sanchez set the franchise’s single-season record for home runs by a catcher, slugging two more round-trippers in Tuesday’s 10-1 win over the Rangers to increase his record-breaking total to 34 in just 99 games this season.
“It’s an honor,” Sanchez said after the victory. “Understanding all the great catchers that this organization has had over the years, for my name to be next to those guys it’s an honor. I try to do my job and let those homers come on their own.”
Sanchez, who recently became the fastest player in American League history to reach 100 career home runs, now has 14 career multi-homer games — achieved faster (365 career games) than any player in major league history except Hall of Famer Ralph Kiner — and four this season, with Tuesday’s two-homer performance his second in four games.
“It’s as good power as anyone,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “Nothing he does will surprise me. I expect him to keep getting better, too. There’s a lot more in the tank. … Wherever he goes offensively, it won’t surprise me.”
After the Yankees were shut out Monday for the first time in 221 games, Sanchez quickly ended the scoring drought. On the eighth pitch of a first-inning battle with opener Edinson Volquez, the 26-year-old crushed a two-out, two-run homer to center to put the Yankees in front for good.
When Sanchez returned to the plate in the sixth, the crowd was buzzing, still giddy over a game-breaking three-run homer from Didi Gregorius. One pitch later, the stadium was set ablaze again, with Sanchez putting the Yankees up 6-0 on a deep solo shot to right center off of Ariel Jurado.
“The homer to right, that’s about as good a swing as you’ll see from anyone,” Boone said. “That’s as pure as you can hit a ball to where he hit it.”
Since returning from a 16-game absence with a strained left groin, Sanchez has 10 home runs in 22 games, including five in his past six outings. In his 12 games prior to landing on the injured list, the two-time All-Star had no home runs and just one RBI.
“This is what he’s capable of,” Boone said. “When he’s locked in and he’s controlling the zone, he’s as deadly as anyone.”
