Yankees top catching prospect Austin Wells shows love to Gary Sanchez after HR

The New York Yankees have played an uneven few games to begin the regular season in 2021, but catcher Gary Sanchez has entered a make-or-break campaign red hot.

On Saturday afternoon, with a 48-hour break between games to navigate (thanks, MLB), Sanchez got right back to work in attempting to wake up a slumping offense.

A few days after he went deep off Hyun-Jin Ryu to turn a 1-0 deficit into a 2-1 lead, Sanchez snagged the exact same advantage with a leadoff homer in the fourth off Ross Stripling.

This time, he waited on a two-strike breaker and sent it sizzling into the first few rows in left field.

If Sanchez can stay hot and solidify the catcher position for the Yankees long-term, that would answer one of many questions surrounding this team’s next few years.

And if you polled one of the team’s potential catching options, it seems like he’d be totally fine with El Kraken continuing to dominate.

Yankees catching prospect Austin Wells showed love to Gary Sanchez.

Yes, Austin Wells, the “catcher of the future” who has yet to play a single minor-league game yet, clearly had the chance to watch Saturday’s game from wherever he’s stuck prior to the High-A (probably) season opening.

When Sanchez rifled his second homer in as many games to tip the scoreboard in the Yankees’ favor, Wells was quick to hop on Instagram and leave him a little message of support.

The more Kraken emojis we see flooding the comment section this season the better, for sure.

Wells, still just 21, doesn’t have a definite long-term home yet, and there’s been speculation his advanced bat will move more quickly than his glove behind the plate, leading him into some sort of utility role.

The Yankees clearly value the first-rounder highly, considering they also selected him out of high school a few years prior, and gave him a showcase repeatedly this spring with the big league club before he’s played an inning of organized ball.

For now, as long as Sanchez is raking, Wells seems content to focus on his development.

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