Gary Sanchez won't stop hitting home runs as youth movement keeps Yankees relevant

The Yankees were sellers at the deadline, but are still fringe contenders

With Wednesday's matinee victory over the Mariners, 5-0, the Yankees come home after a 4-2 West coast road trip. They took two of three from a fellow wild card contender in the Mariners and start a big three-game series with the Orioles at home on Friday.

But the Yankees were sellers at the trade deadline. What business do they have hanging around in the wild-card race? It's actually precisely because they were willing to sell off veteran players and go with the youth movement. Nothing has been bigger than clearing a roster spot for catcher Gary Sanchez.

Sanchez got the scoring going on Wednesday with a solo job in the first.

He would later double and then was intentionally walked twice. He's hitting third for a fringe contender and was put on base twice in a game against a contender less than a month since he was in the minors. Remarkable.

As things stand, Sanchez is hitting .389/.450/.847 with six doubles, nine homers and 16 RBI. This is despite an 0 for 4 spot start back on May 13. Since coming back up on Aug. 3, he's been one of the best hitters in the majors.

And in fact, Sanchez is doing things that are historic.

He now has nine home runs through his first 21 career games. How many players have ever done that? Here's the list. It won't take long.

Through first 21 career games

Player	Year	Home runs	At-bats
Trevor Story	2016	10	36
George Scott	1966	10	32
Alvin Davis	1984	9	34
Mandy Brooks	1925	9	28
Gary Sanchez	2016	9	27

Quick aside: How cool is it that we've seen it twice this season when it had only happened three times before?

Sanchez isn't alone in the mix for the Baby Bombers, as Aaron Judge has also had an impact while 26-year-old Didi Gregorius is having a very good season at short.

Sanchez, though, is off to a historic start. As noted above, that's now nine homers in his first 21 games. No catcher has ever done that before.

There aren't caveats, either. Sanchez has hit well at home and on the road. He swings righty, but he's crushed righties. He's hit well with men on base or the bases empty. He's 4 for 7 in "late and close" situations. He's homered off good pitchers like J.A. Happ, Hisashi Iwakuma and Marco Estrada.

Now, by no means does this mean Sanchez is gonna play like an MVP the rest of the season, much less the rest of his career. He has another step to take. The rest of the league is going to heavily scout him and try to exploit any possible holes they'll find in breaking down video. They'll start pitching him differently. It happens to every hitter. The true test of a great hitter is to see how he adjusts to the adjustments. Many struggle with this, sometimes for years. The great players adjust to the adjustments and sometimes they even improve in doing so. Look across the league at Kris Bryant to see a great example of this.

Perhaps Sanchez will be MVP-caliber next season. Maybe he goes through a huge slump the rest of the way. Maybe he's not really this good and is just having an insane and somewhat-fluky start to his career. We can't tell. That part of his career is to be determined.

For now, though, Sanchez is spear-heading a transition phase for the Yankees franchise and simultaneously keeping them relevant in the playoff picture, even if on the periphery.