Massive Gary Sánchez home run was obvious Yankees revenge

What’s every former Yankees star’s first move after leaving the team? Grow a tremendous beard.

What’s every former Yankees star’s second move after leaving the team? Put a permanent dent in a baseball or twirl a shutout against their former team. So obvious.

While Sonny Gray should have a chance to battle the boo birds in the Bronx before this series with the Twins is over, Gary Sánchez and Gio Urshela both got their first crack at their former faithful on Monday afternoon. Following a nice mid-inning tribute video, Sánchez did not disappoint, showing off his very best attribute in front of a packed house on Labor Day.

With the Yankees holding a 2-0 advantage in the fifth inning, Sánchez made sure to change that emphatically after a Jake Cave walk (also a former Yankee) opened up the inning.

He tattooed a Jameson Taillon cutter over the bleachers in left for a breathtaking blast that felt every inch of 473 feet, even before the final distance was reported on.

Since the Yankees won, we can laugh about it now. But have you ever seen such an “Eff You” homer in your entire life?

Former Yankees catcher Gary Sánchez stung 473-foot home run vs Bombers

On Sunday, Sánchez nearly got his head knocked off by his teammate in the on-deck circle. On Monday, he launches a record-scratch home run that punishes his former team. Coincidence? Yes. Definitely.

Sánchez crushing a throwback 473-foot shot was intensely predictable. As predictable as the fact that the dinger tied the game against the homer-prone Taillon. And most hilarious of all was the fact that nobody had approached Sánchez’s 2019 481-foot smack until the man himself did it again as a visitor. Aaron Judge, where were you on this one? So-called MVP can’t even knock Sánchez out of the stadium record books? Kidding. Kind of.

For a variety of reasons, Sánchez’s tenure had run its course in the Bronx, but his tantalizing, tape-measure dingers were always appreciated by fans. The issue was, they didn’t come often enough. Sánchez still has the ability to put on a revenge show, but he’s also a below-league-average hitter in 2022 (95 OPS+ in a depressed offensive environment), and was familiarly sent packing by sliders when Clay Holmes faced him with the game on the line in the ninth.

The prodigious power reared its ugly head at a tough-to-reconcile time, but so did the strikeout bugaboo. Add in Josh Donaldson’s pimped single off the wall and Isiah Kiner-Falefa’s equally well-timed second home run of the season, and perhaps we call this whole trade even before Donaldson’s run on the paternity list begins?

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