Sanchez homers again, Tanaka rolls as Yankees blank Mariners

While his English might not be flawless, all Tanaka had to do was hear the words “Gary Sanchez” to make him start laughing. His 26 hits as a major-leaguer are tied with Bob Meusel for the third-most by any Yankee (since at least 1913) in his first 20 MLB games.

They did not occur Wednesday afternoon.

A fan fell into the New York Yankees dugout during their victory over the Seattle Mariners on Wednesday, landing on the dugout steps before being corralled by law enforcement.

“It kind of freaked me out, actually”, manager Joe Girardi said of the incident that occurred just before the bottom of the eighth. “This is pretty remarkable, what he’s doing”.

This early bomb off Seattle Mariners righty Hisashi Iwakuma, the 23-year-old Dominican’s ninth homer of the most incredible month ever by a Yankees rookie, was the start of a very good day that ended a very successful West Coast trip that keeps them in the talk for playoff baseball.

Of course, if the 23-year-old Sanchez keeps this up, who knows what might be possible?

Sanchez staked the Yankees to a 1-0 lead with two outs in the first, hammering the first pitch 420 feet into the upper deck in left field for his ninth home run since being called up August 3.

Despite the superhuman feats of a scorching-hot Gary Sanchez, not to mention a two-dinger night from the streaky Starlin Castro, the Yankees still managed to lose the opener in Seattle, 7-5.

Jacob deGrom was roughed up for the second straight start, allowing five runs on 12 hits in 42/3 innings.

Wednesday marked the second time Tanaka and Sanchez have worked together as a battery, and the results were just as impressive as their debut Friday in Anaheim.

Sanchez added a double later in the game and his intentional walk in the seventh inning led to Mark Teixeira’s RBI single for a 4-0 lead.

“Let’s just say he shouldn’t have really been doing anything”, Girardi said.

Did Teixeira take insult watching the Mariners intentionally walk Sanchez to get to him?

“He hit his head on the ground; it looked like he was out of it”, (catcher Brian) McCann said. “I’m hitting.195, of course you walk him there”. “I’m not sure he could’ve seen a player”, Girardi said of the man’s intoxicated appearance.

Sanchez blasted the first pitch he saw from Hisashi Iawkuma (14-9), an 86-mph fastball, and sent it into halfway up the second deck in left.

The walks seemed nearly as impressive as the surge of home runs.

The Yankees got on the board in the top of the first on a home run by Gary Sanchez. DiMaggio had 17 extra-base hits in 1936.

“Outstanding and astonishing”, Tanaka said, through his translator, of Sanchez’s recent run.