Gary Sanchez didn’t seem too interested in talking about his Yankee tenure now that he was in a Twins uniform for the first time on Monday.
“Since last night, that chapter is gone,” Sanchez said via his interpreter on Monday. “It’s in the past.”
It was a complicated past, to say the least. After bursting onto the scene with a historic home run tear as a rookie in 2016, Sanchez put up All-Star numbers in 2017, and had one of the team’s biggest hits in recent memory with a go-ahead two-run double in game four of the ALCS. But passed balls began to become an issue during that season, and became harder to mask as his offensive numbers sharply declined in 2018. A spurt of his former self appeared in the first half of the 2019 season, but the past two years have resulted in lost playing time to Kyle Higashioka, who became Gerrit Cole’s personal catcher, and uncertainty within the franchise regarding his long-term future.
That uncertainty was answered on Sunday night, when he was dealt to Minnesota along with Gio Urshela, bringing an end to a polarizing six years in pinstripes.
“It’s in the past, like I said,” Sanchez said. “It's in the past. I'm part of the Twins and now we're going to do the opposite.”
Sanchez will embrace his new home by growing out his beard. His only regret is that he wasn’t traded a day earlier.
“I'm going to let it grow,” Sanchez said of his beard. “I'm kind of a little upset that I shaved yesterday and now I'm here.”
But Sanchez did thank the Yankees in a Twitter post Tuesday morning:
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