CHICAGO — Six years is a long time to wait for one swing. For Ali Sanchez, most Yankees fans could not have named a month ago, the wait ended on a full count in a loud ballpark far from home.
The Yankees needed a lift Monday night at Rate Field. They had spotted the White Sox an early lead, clawed back, and carried a nervous one-run edge into the eighth inning of a game they could not afford to lose.
The man who provided the cushion was not a star. He was a backup, a career .202 hitter who had bounced through five organizations without ever clearing a big league fence.
That absence of power made what happened next feel almost improbable. With two outs and two runners aboard, he worked the count full against a hard-throwing left-hander.
Then he changed the game, and gave himself a memory a lifetime in the making.
A first home run six years in the making
The catcher is Ali Sanchez, and his three-run homer off Sean Newcomb turned a tight game into a 9-5 Yankees win. The two-out drive, on a 3-2 fastball, traveled 371 feet to left field for the first home run of his major league career.
It came in his 75th big league game, spread across five seasons and six teams. Sanchez had entered the night with 180 career plate appearances and no home runs, a defensive specialist whose bat had never produced a moment like this one.
The 29-year-old from Carora, Venezuela, has taken the long way to this point. He debuted for the Mets in 2020, bounced through five more organizations, and signed with the Yankees on a minor league deal last winter with no promise of playing time.
From a $690,000 bonus to baseball’s long road
Sanchez was once a coveted prospect, not an afterthought. Born in Carora, Venezuela, he signed with the Mets as a 16-year-old international free agent in July 2013 for a $690,000 bonus, ranked among the top amateur talents available that period.
The Mets hoped he would become the next great Venezuelan catcher, in the tradition of Salvador Perez, Victor Martinez and Miguel Montero. He validated the interest early, hitting .303 with a .406 on-base percentage in the Dominican Summer League in 2014 and earning a mid-season all-star nod.
His calling card was always defense. Scouts praised his blocking, his framing and a quick, accurate transfer, and he routinely threw out more than 40 percent of attempted base stealers in the minors. The bat was the question, a contact-first swing that scouts graded as light on power.
Injuries stalled the climb. A fractured hamate bone limited him to 46 games in 2016 and cost him time again in 2017. The Mets still added him to their 40-man roster after the 2019 season, and he debuted in August 2020, fittingly notching his first big league hit at Yankee Stadium.
From there, the journey turned nomadic. A cash trade sent him to the Cardinals in 2021, and stints in the Tigers, Pirates, Diamondbacks, Cubs, Marlins, Blue Jays and Red Sox systems followed before the Yankees signed him. His longest look came with Miami in 2024, when he played 31 games.
A dream traced back to a small town in Venezuela
For a player who had waited this long, the moment carried weight beyond the scoreboard. As he circled the bases, Sanchez said his mind went home, to the dusty fields where he first learned the game.
“I felt like I was living a dream running the bases,” Sanchez told YES Network. “Just a little kid running from Venezuela in a small town, just running the bases.”
The swing, he said, was something he had rehearsed in his head for years before it finally happened in a Yankees uniform.
“I thought about it in my mind a lot,” Sanchez said. “You always dream to play in the big leagues. Having your first homer with a Yankees uniform and getting the ‘W,’ it’s special.”
He kept the ball, encased in a plastic cube on the top shelf of his locker. He also made time for a young fan afterward, signing items and posing for photos before leaning toward a microphone to say, “Thank you, Santiago.”
A role that has grown as Yankees catching struggles
Sanchez’s rise matters because of a hole the Yankees have not solved. The team’s catchers have produced a .550 OPS this season, 29th among the 30 clubs, and general manager Brian Cashman has called the position an issue with the Aug. 3 trade deadline approaching.
That struggle has opened a door. Sanchez has earned more time behind the plate on the strength of his defense and a knack for handling left-handed pitching, hitting .333 against lefties this season. Manager Aaron Boone framed his path in simple terms.
“Everyone’s journey is different,” Boone said.
Sanchez has stayed focused on the part he can control. He has leaned on his glove and his preparation, and he made clear he sees his job as helping the Yankees win rather than chasing personal milestones. That team-first tone has helped him stick in the Yankees clubhouse.
“I’m thankful that I’ve been getting opportunities, and I’m just trying to do my part to win games,” Sanchez said.
A timely lift for a team chasing October
The homer landed at a useful moment for the Yankees, who improved to 60-46 and pulled within 2 1/2 games of Tampa Bay in the American League East. The win was their sixth in eight games as they push through a stretch of injuries.
New York has played much of the season without Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton, and it lost Cody Bellinger to a hamstring injury over the weekend. In that context, unexpected contributions carry extra value, and Sanchez delivered one.
The Yankees continue to look outside the roster for catching help, with published reports linking them to the Twins’ Ryan Jeffers and the Reds’ Tyler Stephenson. Whatever the Yankees front office does by Aug. 3, Sanchez has given it a reason to keep him in the mix.
For now, the journeyman catcher has his first home run ball, a win, and a story the Yankees clubhouse will remember. Gerrit Cole takes the mound Tuesday against the White Sox as New York tries to build on a night one of its least likely players made his own.
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