MONKEY OFF HIS BACK
Sanchez tosses doubts over the wall and out Fenway with pair of huge blasts
B OSTON — Yes, he watched it. You bet he did. There wasn’t a ballpark in the world that would have contained the baseball where Gary Sanchez had just rocketed it, 479 feet away from home plate, a blast so magnificent that it rendered Fenway Park mute, muffling 39,151 voice boxes. Yes, he took his time ambling around the basepaths. You bet he did. After the season he’s had, after the way his last at-bat had gone, after all the calls that he be benched or traded or exiled to Scranton or Siberia, he was going to savor this. He was going to enjoy the way his teammates rejoiced in the third-base dugout. The Yankees were going to beat the Red Sox in Game 2 of their American League Division Series, 6-2. They were going to square matters at a game apiece, and they were going to drag this rivalry back to Yankee Stadium on Monday night where there will be a rabid gathering of Yankees fans eager to tilt these series in their favor through sheer will of want-to. There is no need to come back to Fenway if the Yankees take care of business Monday and Tuesday. And Gary Sanchez was the biggest reason why. “He was just a monster tonight,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said of Sanchez’s four-RBI explosion. “We all know he’s capable of that and that’s what we’ve been waiting for, seeing him take over a game like that.” How long have the Yankees waited? How many passed balls had they endured, how many non-competitive at-bats, how many nights when it seemed Sanchez would rather be anywhere but playing the baseball game in front of him? It was a terrible season by any definition. But there was always October. “I always stayed positive throughout the whole season,” Sanchez said. “I know it was a rough season for me. It was a tough one. But that’s the regular season, and that’s done. We’re done with that.” The Yankees banked on that. They bet on it. They kept running Sanchez out there, to the point it seemed almost blindly stubborn. With a week left in the regular season they took the unusual step of naming him the wild-card game catcher, in order to silence the pleas to put Austin Romine and his steadier glove (and, in this season, more reliable bat) in the lineup.
The Yankees had no tangible reason to do this other than faith. But then, sometimes, in sports, faith can be the most powerful motivator of all.
“I believe in the player, clearly,” Yankees GM Brian Cashman had said Friday night. “Next season is now. October’s the second season. I hope we’ll see what we’re used to seeing from Gary, which is a great player.”
Game 1 was more of the same from Sanchez: 0-for-3, a walk, a strikeout. Boone elevated him from eighth to fifth in the order for Game 2 because of his otherworldly career numbers against Sox starter David Price. First time up, top of the second inning, he stepped in against Price, the Yankees already up 1-0 thanks to an Aaron Judge homer in the first inning. Sanchez doubled the lead with one swing, a routine blast over the Green Monster.
That was the first of a three-act passion play for Sanchez on Saturday. Three innings later, top of the fifth, the score 3-1, Sanchez stepped out of the box after Sox pitcher Ryan Brasier got ahead of him 1-and-2. Sanchez was trying to interrupt Brasier’s rhythm. This didn’t sit well with Brasier.
“[Bleep!]” Brasier barked. “Get back in the [bleepin’] box!”
Sanchez did. He flailed at a 97 mph fastball. Fenway exploded in delight. It was the one part of the evening that didn’t quite go as planned for Sanchez.
Part three did. By now it was the top of the seventh, and there were runners at the corners with one out, and Fenway was feeling frisky because the Sox had just gotten the benefit of the doubt from a replay official back in New York which otherwise would’ve had the bases juiced for Sanchez.
And that’s when he got his money’s worth on a 94 mph fastball from Eduardo Rodriguez, clobbering it to a place at Fenway that few souls could ever reach, just to the right of one of the Green Monster light towers, just to the left of one of the video scoreboards. “Even if it’s only 300 feet,” he said, “I’ll take it.” At 300 feet, this one was only starting to climb. He watched it. Every bit of it. You bet he did.