The results don’t count just yet, at least not towards the Yankees’ ultimate goal of winning a World Series, but so far this spring, the team is getting everything they hoped for from Gary Sanchez.
The polarizing catcher, who has experienced the highest of highs and lowest of lows already in his five-year career, has already slugged three home runs and boasts an OPS north of 1.000 so far in spring training, as the 28-year-old looks to put a disastrous 2020 season in the rearview.
“I felt really good coming into camp,” Sanchez said through his interpreter during a Zoom call with reporters on Tuesday. “There’s definitely things I think I can still improve, but yeah, I’ll just keep working.”
Whatever Sanchez has done so far is indeed working. He has shown off the prolific power that made him a Rookie of the Year candidate in 2016 and a two-time All-Star, hitting a home run over the batter’s eye earlier this spring, and launching another halfway up a light tower in left field just a week later. For Sanchez, he credits his fast spring start to a more relaxed mindset at the plate, no longer pressing like he was last season, when he suffered through a season-long slump that included a batting average below the Mendoza line.
“You go into a short season and you’re not getting the results you want, you start getting anxious,” Sanchez said. “You get to a point where you’re not getting the results you want, and at some point you start wanting to get two hits in one at-bat.”
While Sanchez admittedly tried to do too much at the plate at times last season, he never felt he lost his confidence in his hitting ability, which has served him well in the past in the form of a Silver Slugger award and a 30-home run season as recently as 2019, when he was an MVP candidate through the first half of the season.
“I wouldn’t say it’s a lack of confidence,” Sanchez said. “Lack of confidence and being anxious are two different things. When you relax at the plate and you’re calm and you’re just thinking of putting a together good at-bat, that’s usually when you get the best results. In any sport, confidence is key. If you lack confidence, things aren’t going to work out for you.”
So far, Sanchez likes the results he’s seen in spring. The Yankees have to be thrilled as well, including Aaron Judge, who called Sanchez an MVP candidate when he’s right at the plate.
“I’ve always had really good support from my teammates,” Sanchez said. “They’ve always been there for me. Judge and I, we have a really good relationship. I just go out there and give the best I have.”
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