ANAHEIM, Calif. — It is a plus that Gary Sanchez is the first significant Yankee to step off the injured list and join the lineup, even though he didn’t show it in the Yankees’ 7-5 win over the Angels on Wednesday night. Sanchez’s return can’t be the be-all and end-all when it comes to the catcher rejoining a team that has been stripped of its best players, staff ace and bullpen stud due to injuries. Sanchez was activated for Wednesday night’s game at Angel Stadium. He is expected to add muscle to a lineup that has been carried by Luke Voit and Clint Frazier with an occasional sprinkling of power supplied by Mike Tauchman and Mike Ford. And with Gleyber Torres and DJ LeMahieu fighting their way through slides at the plate, Sanchez can help balance that out. But Sanchez had a game to forget in his return to the lineup, striking out four times and committing a fielding error. Since Sanchez went on the IL with a strained left calf on April 12 (backdated to April 11), the Yankees had gone 8-3 with Austin Romine and Kyle Higashioka, who was sent back to Scranton Wilkes-Barre on Wednesday, handling the catching chores. Judging by the Yankees’ rotation pitching very well in the previous eight games (4-1 with a 1.56 ERA), the starters have done well with Sanchez sidelined. While Sanchez caught better in eight games this year than in the past two seasons, his bat is needed now. “Obviously, really excited to get him back,’’ manager Aaron Boone said of Sanchez, who was inserted in the cleanup spot. “It was good to write his name in the lineup, no question. Looking forward to him getting back in the fray and help us to continue to win games.’’ How good Sanchez is coming back remains to be seen. Outside of a minor league rehab game for Single-A Charleston on Monday night, Sanchez hasn’t played since April 10, when he pinch hit against the Astros in Houston. The night before that, he was the DH, and the night prior to that was the last time Sanchez caught. “There are going to be games for the backup, so I am not going to run him into the ground, obviously, but he is a full-go player and catcher,’’ Boone said. Thanks to a three-homer splurge against the Orioles on April 7 in Baltimore, Sanchez has six homers and 11 RBIs in 12 games. His averaged dropped to .244 after Wednesday’s stinker. Since Sanchez went on the IL before Greg Bird (left plantar fascia) and Aaron Judge (left oblique strain) went down, but after Aaron Hicks, Miguel Andujar and Giancarlo Stanton, it’s good news for the Yankees that he is the first one back. Yet being back doesn’t automatically mean Sanchez will produce at the plate immediately. And he has the added burden of handling a pitching staff. The fact nobody can accurately predict when the other injured parts of the lineup will return — and Judge, the most important member of the IL, could be months away — Sanchez not only has to return but perform.<doc-sep>The New York Yankees have activated catcher Gary Sanchez from the 10-day injured list and demoted struggling reliever Chad Green to the minor leagues. Sanchez had been sidelined since April 10 because of a calf injury. He hit six home runs in his first 11 games this season before suffering the injury. Sanchez is the first of several prominent injured Yankees regulars to return from the IL. The Yankees are still without Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton, Miguel Andujar, Didi Gregorius, Luis Severino, Dellin Betances, Aaron Hicks, Greg Bird and Troy Tulowitzki. Green, one of New York's most reliable bullpen arms over the past two years, has gotten off to an awful start this season. The right-hander allowed four earned runs in one-third of an inning Tuesday, raising his ERA to 16.43 in 10 appearances. The Yankees also promoted left-hander Stephen Tarpley from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre and optioned catcher Kyle Higashioka to Scranton on Wednesday.<doc-sep>ANAHEIM, Calif. — Yankees catcher Gary Sanchez had one of those days Wednesday. Fresh off the injured list, he batted four times in his first game back and struck out four times. His night was so bad that he even fumbled a bunt in front of the plate for an error, his fifth of the season in just nine games caught. This was a brutal return from 12 days on the injured list with a left calf sprain. His reaction to his bad night? Sanchez left Angel Stadium in a very good mood for a couple reasons: The Yankees rallied from a 5-0 deficit for a 6-5 victory. Sanchez made it through nine innings without an injury. Asked if he felt anything in his calf, Sanchez smiled and responded, "No, thank God! I am 100 percent. I feel really, really good and I am ready to play.” Sanchez didn’t like striking out four times, but he felt great hitting .268 with six homers in 11 games before he got hurt, and he figures he’ll be feeling good at the plate again as soon as he gets a few at-bats. “(My timing) probably was just a bit off, maybe a little late,” Sanchez said. “The good thing here is I feel really good. At the plate, it’s a matter of making an adjustment.” As for his fourth-inning fielding blunder, Sanchez owned up to the mistake. With slow-running Albert Pujols on first base, Sanchez was thinking double play when he hustled to barehand Brian Goodman’s bunt in front of home plate. “I saw a good opportunity to get a double play, I rushed and took my eyes away from the ball,” he said. The error cost the Yankees a run when Kole Calhoun hit a three-run homer two batters later for a 5-0 Angels lead. The Yankees recovered playing with a bunch of kids again. The one making the biggest contribution to this win was rookie right-hander Jonathan Loaisiga, who pitched three shutout innings of relief and was the winning pitcher on the same day that he returned from Triple-A. The Yankees still have 13 players on the injured list after Sanchez was activated and outfielder Clint Frazier was added Wednesday, but they’ve somehow won six in a row and eight of nine playing without a bunch of stars. Even though he’s been hurt, Sanchez has enjoyed all this winning as much as anyone, and now the 2017 All-Star is excited to start contributing the way he can. “We never put our head down, even with all the injuries,” Sanchez said. “It’s a bunch of us, but we were here. We were around the team and providing support for the team and the guys who have come up have done a great job. "They play really good baseball and won games. That’s what we want to do, keep winning and build on it.” Randy Miller may be reached at rmiller@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @RandyJMiller. Find NJ.com on Facebook.<doc-sep>SAN FRANCISCO -- Just when life was beginning to get pretty good for the mostly no-name New York Yankees, it got even better with one booming swing Saturday afternoon. Hello, big leagues, meet the healthier, rejuvenated Gary Sanchez. With the bases loaded in the top of fifth inning Saturday at Oracle Park, Sanchez did something he had struggled with his past two games: He turned on a two-strike pitch. Not only did he make contact with it, he made monster contact, putting the baseball in a place no defender could even dream about getting it. "The past couple of games I've had some struggles at the plate, and when I'm able to connect like that, I feel happy, and I'm going to show some emotion," Sanchez said through an interpreter, reflecting on the way he dropped his bat, clapped his hands and yelled into his dugout as he began a home run trot. Sanchez turned so well on the 90.6 mph middle-in sinker from veteran lefty Derek Holland that he dropped the ball a whopping 467 feet away from home plate, way up into the left-center bleacher seats. Daytime, nighttime, anytime, it's hard to hit a ball that far in one of the best pitcher's parks in the majors. Editor's Picks Yanks' Frazier to IL; Stanton's recovery hits snag Yankees acquire Maybin in trade with Indians Checking in on six veterans on the comeback trail 2 Related "I had to walk down the [dugout] steps and let out a yell," Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. "That's one that kind of sucks the life out of the building. That one gets you a little. "That fires you up when you see one of our dudes step on one. I enjoy that." From his view on the bases the day's starting pitcher, J.A. Happ, also enjoyed watching the mammoth shot that helped power New York to the 6-4 win over the host San Francisco Giants. "I was at third base [as a baserunner], and I felt like he was going to maybe hit one foul through my chest at 110 [mph], but he ended up hitting it at 110 through the glove out there. That was incredible." Sanchez's drive was the longest grand slam of the four-year-old Statcast era, and it was also the second-longest homer in the 19-year-old ballpark's history. Only Ian Desmond's 477-foot homer at the then-named AT&T Park on Aug. 15, 2015, was longer. "I've seen him do that before," Happ said of Sanchez's first grand slam, "and that's a good sign for us." It sure is. Remember, with 13 players -- among them superstars, All-Stars, a Rookie of the Year, a Rookie of the Year runner-up, and former Silver Slugger and MVP Award winners -- on its injured list, New York is trotting out its equivalent of the "B" team Bombers. The shuttle from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre to the Bronx has been active this spring. Just this past week alone, the Yankees have called up minor leaguers Joe Harvey, Stephen Tarpley and Thairo Estrada. They even pulled off a trade Thursday for Cameron Maybin, a 32-year-old veteran outfielder whom Cleveland had recently added to its farm system. Only two players in the Yankees' series-opening starting lineup Friday had also appeared in the Opening Day lineup. That's how bare the cupboard has become for a big league team that has had to reach deep into its organizational depth and make a bevy of roster moves to stay afloat. Amazingly, despite the attrition, the Yankees have won 11 of their past 14 games and sit just 1½ games out of first place in the American League East. With their share of close wins, late-game wins and wins that have hinged on pivotal baserunning decisions, pitching performances and power displays, the Yankees have started feeling a chemistry some think rivals their best of times in 2017 and 2018. Gary Sanchez can breathe easier now that his first career grand slam is in the books. Cody Glenn/Icon Sportswire As Maybin, three days into his Yankees career, put it earlier this weekend: "There's a different energy" to the ballclub. It's a confident, loose energy that he last saw in 2017 when he was part of the World Series champion Houston Astros. "Being in the minors [with the Indians], you know there's a little bit of every man for himself, which is the case anywhere guys are trying to prove themselves," Maybin said. "You don't see that here. It's we want to do something. We want to win." Following another recent victory, Mike Tauchman, just one month into being a Yankee, kept smiling in the clubhouse and repeating two words: "This team." "There's just something about having the intangibles necessary to win close games," Tauchman said. "This team has it." After striking out two and giving up five hits in a scoreless seven-inning performance Saturday, Happ was given the Yankees' WWE-style championship belt, an honor that goes to the player deemed to have the best performance of the day. As is tradition with the belt winner, Happ addressed the team after the game. He had one message. "One thing that I felt is, we're coming to the field and we're focused and confident when it's game time," Happ said. "When you combine those two things, that's a good recipe. It makes for cleaner games. You've noticed when we have clean games, we've come out on top for the most part. "We've been focused and we're gaining more confidence as we go. It's fun." Home runs like the blast Sanchez hit have that kind of team-wide galvanizing effect. Luke Voit 's eight homers have certainly helped keep the Yankees stabilized amid these injury-wracked few weeks. Some of the shots he has hit mirrored Sanchez's slam in the messages they've sent: Limping as they are, the Bronx Bombers still have boppers. Sure, Saturday's slam is the only base hit Sanchez has had since his own return from the IL three games ago. But it's a sign that he's beginning to round back into form, picking up where he left off with his six-homer start before his injury.<doc-sep>
SAN FRANCISCO — The question hovers over Gary Sanchez. Is this the one? Is this the big hit that gets Sanchez on a roll? It certainly was long enough, 467 feet, the Yankees’ longest home run of the season, and according to Sanchez, the second-longest home run he has ever hit. It was loud enough, the bases were juiced when Sanchez homered high up into the left-field bleachers at Oracle Park in the fifth inning Saturday for the first grand slam of his career as the Yankees continued to roll with a 6-4 win over the Giants. And it certainly was emphatic. The moment after connecting on the 91 mph fastball from lefty Derek Holland, Sanchez tossed his bat in front of the plate, looked into the Yankees dugout and slapped his hands together as if to say: That’s what I can do when I’m right. “The past couple of games I’ve had, I have been off at the plate and to be able to connect like that makes me feel happy and I showed some emotions, I was excited,’’ Sanchez said through a translator. The grand slam was the first hit for Sanchez since his return from the injured list on Wednesday. He had been 0-for-11 since coming back from his calf injury. His previous two at-bats had resulted in strikeouts. He was given Friday night off after an abysmal game Thursday night in Anaheim, Calif. In his next at-bat after the grand slam, Sanchez nearly got his second home run of the day, hitting a towering high fly that was caught in front of the center-field fence. As for the grand slam, the closest glove to that big drive was the big glove above the bleachers in left. It was the kind of blast that jump-starts an offense and can jump-start a player. If any player needs a jump start, it is Sanchez. Behind the plate, it has been a wild ride the past few years. At the plate, sometimes he looks completely lost. Despite all his issues, including missing two weeks with his injury, Sanchez’s seven home runs only trail team leader Luke Voit by one. The Yankees need this Gary Sanchez to get where they want to go. “My last two at-bats I felt more comfortable,’’ Sanchez admitted. “I felt confident. That’s what you want. Now we have to keep that consistency going.’’ Sanchez must be more consistent, because so much is riding on his talents. Every Yankees fan wants Sanchez to be so much more than he is, and that is the burden he carries. Maybe Sanchez is the player we have seen of late. Sometimes lost at the plate and behind the plate, a passed ball just waiting to happen; and sometimes an incredible force, crushing a baseball 467 feet with the bases loaded, taking over a game with one mighty swing. Sanchez gave the Accidental Yankees and J.A. Happ room to breathe. He can do so much for an offense. Luis Cessa gave up two home runs and four runs in the ninth to make it close. Sanchez admitted he was “very excited” to launch his first grand slam. “To get the chance to help the team, four big runs, I’m super happy about that, now I’m hoping to get more of those,’’ he said. He did not get the baseball back. “I didn’t ask about it, but nobody told me anything,’’ Sanchez said. “I don’t know if they got it or not. I don’t even know if they knew it was the first [grand slam].’’ Behind the plate, Sanchez had more zip, and when former teammate Tyler Austin struck out against Cessa to end the eighth, Sanchez whipped the ball to Voit at first base with a flourish. There was life to his game and more life to the Yankees. Less life to the Giants and their fans. “That’s one that kind of sucks the life out of the building,’’ manager Aaron Boone said of the titanic blast. “I had to walk down the steps and let out a yell. That fires you up when you see one of our dudes really step on one. I enjoy that. You always know he is capable of something like that at any moment.’’ The Yankees need Gary Sanchez to be a dude.