Yankees Gary Sanchez matches Mickey Mantle in record books

Gary Sanchez’s solo home run in the Yankees 5-4 loss to the Padres on Tuesday marked his 17th long ball in 37 games played, tying Mickey Mantle for the team record of fewest games to reach such a mark.

Yankees catcher Gary Sanchez is having one heck of a turnaround season with the bat. Among qualified major league backstops, Sanchez leads all of baseball in home runs (17), RBIs (33), SLG (.657) and OPS at .993.

And so on Tuesday, Sanchez did something only one other player to ever wear the iconic Yankee pinstripes did — hit 17 home runs in 37 games played. That man will forever be known as The Mick.

In 1956, Mantle hit 17 long balls in his first 37 games and finished the campaign with a grand total of 52 — which was the second most of his 18-year career (54 in 1961).

Naturally, the most significant difference between the two is that Sanchez didn’t accomplish the feat in 37 consecutive games due to a calf strain that briefly landed him on the IL in April.

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The Yankees have played a total of 54 games thus far.

Even still, Sanchez’s mark of one home run every 8.24 at-bats is well ahead of his 2016 rookie season mark of 10.05 — when he clubbed 20 long balls in only 201 at-bats.

Further proof that The Kraken has returned as an elite power hitter is the sheer fact that he is only one home run shy of the 18 he slugged last season, but has done so in 183 fewer at-bats.

Should Sanchez remain injury free, there’s no reason why he can’t add to his .264/.335/.657 slash line, stay on track for a 50 homer campaign and be named to his second AL All-Star team.

After notching his fifth long ball in eight games (featuring an MLB season-best 10th home run with an exit velocity over 110 mph), Sanchez has now crushed a homer 12 percent of the time he’s been up to the plate.

Not reaching 17 homers until Sept 14 of last season, El Gary is hitting more fly balls this year (from 42.9 percent to 58.1) while significantly decreasing his groundball output (42.9 percent to 20.4 percent).

Sure, there’s still room for improvement, such as bettering his 7-for-32 with RISP or limiting an MLB-worst eight errors and four past balls, but Sanchez is a work in progress that finally appears to be back on track.

Though the Yankees will continue to tweak Sanchez behind the plate, there will come a time where the club accepts him for what he is — a power hitter with a solid arm and below average defensive skills that just so happens to play a position of weakness around the major leagues.