The Yankees and Gary Sanchez are about to take off

It should come as no surprise that as Gary Sanchez has started to heat up so has this Yankees team. With Sanchez’s early season slump now behind him the best is yet to come for him and the Yankees.

Thursday afternoon marked the Yankees sixth straight win thanks to the heroics of Sanchez. His walk-off blast finished off a big 8-2 homestand before the team heads out west to start a seven-game road trip against the much improved Angels and the defending champion Houston Astros.

It’s going to be a tough early season test for the Yanks, but right now they’re playing their best baseball of the season with the offense and Sanchez leading the way. Early in April, Sanchez was uncharacteristically struggling to start his campaign, going 2-36. The Yankees themselves were playing sloppy baseball across the board and their record was hovering around the .500 mark.

Sanchez was hitting into a lot of bad luck, but he was also chasing a lot of pitches out of the zone and he got into pull mode instead of using the whole field like he does when he’s at his best. At the beginning of this past homestand, he was still slumping a bit, but the offense was starting to catch fire thanks to an incredible week from teammate Didi Gregorius.

Didi and Aaron Judge have carried the Yankee lineup while Sanchez and Giancarlo Stanton have struggled to get going, but during the four-game sweep over the Twins El Gary found his stroke and now he looks like he’s about to take off.

It started during Tuesday’s 8-3 win when Sanchez took Twins’ ace Jose Berrios deep and then later in the game he launched a 436 ft. bomb off reliever Tyler Duffey for his second home run of the night. It marked Sanchez’s 9th career multi-home run game in only his 196th career game which set an all-time major league record per Jeff Quagliata of the YES Network.

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Despite Sanchez’s lackluster .202 average, the power numbers are still there with six home runs and 21 RBI. His RBI total is the seventh most in the majors and it leads all catchers in addition to his six home runs.

It’s no shock to see Sanchez leading both categories because coming into the season he was widely considered the best offensive catcher in baseball.

Now that he’s in a groove Yankee fans know how dangerous Sanchez can be and how he can carry this offense for an extended stretch. Fortunately for the Yanks, with all the talent and power across the lineup, there isn’t a need for one guy to do all the heavy lifting. However, with the team set to face a string of AL playoff contenders over the next two weeks, it sure would be nice to see Sanchez go off on one of his patented offensive tears.

As they prepare to begin their big west coast trip tonight in Anaheim the Yankees have to feel good about where they stand at the moment. They’ve won six in a row after a slow 9-9 start and the offense is now dominating opponents like we all expected. They’re already leading baseball in all the major power categories and that’s still without last year’s NL MVP making much of an impact.

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We know that that soon will change, but in the meantime, this Yankee team will do just fine now that Gary Sanchez has joined in on the fun.