Die Saalfelds » Facing the Minnesota Twins seems to be a cure-all.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Gary Sanchez was struggling since coming off the disabled list Eric Hosmer Jersey , and the New York Yankees were off to a so-so September start.Sanchez had three hits, including a mammoth home run, J.A. Happ tossed six shutout innings and the Yankees continued their mastery of the Twins with a 7-2 win on Monday night.Could his first three-hit game since April 16 be a turning point for the catcher hitting .189?“I’ve hit the ball very hard all season and I haven’t got the results I wanted. If this is what it takes for me to find a good streak here or a good positive streak, yeah, why not,” Sanchez said through an interpreter.New York has beaten Minnesota nine straight times, including last year’s wild card game, outscoring the Twins 66-23. The Yankees are 20-4 in the teams’ meetings since July 25, 2015.The Yankees, 5-4 in the season’s final month, increased their lead over idle Oakland to three games for the first AL wild-card spot.Happ (16-6) allowed six hits and struck out three. Acquired from Toronto on July 26, the left-hander has allowed two or fewer runs in six of eight starts for New York, going 6-0 with a 2.70 ERA.“I ran into a couple outings before I came over where I really wasn’t getting strike one as much as I needed to,” he said. “Tonight, I felt like I was ahead in the count a lot and kind of forced them to be aggressive and swing.”Kyle Gibson (7-13) allowed four hits and one earned run in 5 2/3 innings. He was one batter away from tossing six shutout innings before Sanchez crushed low 2-2 fastball 460 feet into the third deck in left field.“We’ve talked before about a guy’s sweet spot, and some guys like the ball down and that’s probably on the fringe of where he likes the ball the most,” Gibson said.Before the bomb, Sanchez was 3 for 29 since coming off the disabled list on Sept. 1.“You always feel like he’s a guy that can get it rolling, and when he does Jose Pirela Jersey , he’s, from a talent standpoint, one of those guys that can carry a club offensively,” manager Aaron Boone said.New York’s first eight batters reached base in a six-run seventh. Miguel Andujar had a two-run double and later scored on a double by Giancarlo Stanton, who had been in a 3-for-35 slump. Didi Gregorius doubled home Stanton.New York was 5 for 17 with runners in scoring position after going 4 for 35 in its previous six games.“Finally, a lot of really good at-bats to kind of break that game open. It was something I feel like we needed and glad that a lot of guys had a hand in it,” Boone said.JUDGE GETS HIS CUTSYankees slugger Aaron Judge took on-field batting practice for the first time since fracturing his right wrist on July 26.The session included home runs to multiple fields by the 2017 AL Rookie of the Year.“It went really well; another big step for him to get out on the field,” Boone said.After the game, Judge refused to put a timeline on his return.“I really don’t want to put myself in a box by setting a date and then not making it. . I just need to keep moving forward until the day I get out there.”TRADING GEMSTwins left fielder Johnny Field made a sliding grab in the fifth to rob Andujar of a hit and save two runs. Third baseman Andujar returned the favor in the bottom of the inning, snaring a sharp liner by Field.TRAINER’S ROOMYankees: 1B Luke Voit has been dealing with back stiffness for a couple of days and wants to play through it, but Greg Bird got the start.Twins: 3B Miguel Sano missed his fifth straight game with lower left leg issues — including a sore knee that he sustained sliding into second base last Tuesday. … 1B Tyler Austin went through hitting drills and took batting practice but missed his fourth straight game with a stiff back.UP NEXTTo provide extra rest for Luis Severino and Masahiro Tanaka, New York’s Sonny Gray (10-8, 4.96) is scheduled for a spot start on Tuesday. Removed from the rotation in early August, Gray tossed 6 1/3 scoreless innings in his last spot start, on Aug. 25 in Baltimore. Minnesota will send RHP Tyler Duffey (1-2, 9.00) to the mound for his first start of the season.__ DENVER (AP) — The Colorado Rockies would like to air a little grievance: They’re thin on MVP winners in their history. Even lighter on Cy Young candidates.They wouldn’t mind a little altitude adjustment when it comes to conventional thinking at Coors Field. As it stands, sometimes they feel like hitters get penalized for hitting at higher elevation half the time and the pitchers don’t get rewarded highly enough.It’s a scale that doesn’t seem balanced.“Hopefully, that will start to go away a little bit more,” Rockies outfielder Matt Holliday said. “Because there are lots of good hitting parks around the league. For people to just single out Coors Field and write it off is unfair.”The Rockies have had 11 batting champions in their past and one MVP winner — Larry Walker in 1997. They’ve had one pitcher finish in the top-three in the NL Cy Young race Kevin Kiermaier Jersey , Ubaldo Jimenez in 2010.Part of the reason may be this: “It’s a challenge to evaluate the numbers in Denver,” Phillies manager Gabe Kapler explained.And that’s the mile-high rub for a field situated at 5,200 feet and viewed as a hitter-friendly venue.Take, for instance, last season, when Charlie Blackmon won the NL batting title with a .331 average and set an MLB record with 102 RBIs from the leadoff spot. He finished fifth in the award earned by Giancarlo Stanton, who had 59 homers.This season, it will be hard to upstage Christian Yelich after the Milwaukee Brewers outfielder won the NL batting title (.326), drove in 110 runs and hit 36 homers. Rockies third baseman Nolan Arenado had quite a season with an NL-leading 38 homers, while Trevor Story became the first major league shortstop to ever finish with at least 40 doubles, 30 homers and 25 stolen bases. They figure to at least be in the running for the MVP.In Colorado’s history, dating to 1993, only five times has a player finished in the top-three in MVP voting. The last was Holliday in 2007, when he hit .340 with 36 homers and 137 RBIs. Holliday was edged out by Jimmy Rollins of Philadelphia.“For me, it shouldn’t matter — a guy’s got to go out and perform no matter where he’s at,” Nationals manager Dave Martinez said. “It’s not his fault where he plays. It shouldn’t matter what field you play on, or if your home field is Coors Field. A lot of good players have played here and went elsewhere and did well.“If an MVP comes out of here, more power to them.”As for how much power is generated inside Coors Field? That remains a lively debate. The team installed a humidor room in 2002 to control the moisture level in baseballs, which helps keep them from becoming dried out and more hitter-friendly in Denver’s thin air.For all their power and pop through the years Alex Cobb Jersey , the Rockies have never led the majors as a team in homers (although they’ve led the NL several times). And maybe because of the spacious gaps in the outfielder, they’ve had six batting champions in the last 12 seasons.“To knock a guy just because he plays in a little bit thinner of air, I don’t believe is right,” Rockies left-hander and Denver native Kyle Freeland said. “In my eyes, I’d love to see everything be an even playing field through and through, no matter what park you’re playing at.”Or if it punishes hitters, reward pitchers accordingly.“I think context is always important,” Kapler said. “But I don’t think that there should be anybody eliminated from a postseason award based on where they play. I don’t think that’s fair or reasonable.”Freeland finished with a 2.40 ERA at Coors Field — the best mark ever by a Colorado starting pitcher. He could be in the mix for the Cy Young, which figures to go to New York Mets standout Jacob deGrom after posting a 1.70 ERA.Only Jimenez and Marvin Freeman (fourth, 1994) have finished in the top five for Colorado.“That’s kind of been what a lot of people have been saying this year, that if you’re going to be docking hitters, why aren’t pitchers being elevated?” Freeland said. “I don’t know if it’s because throughout the course of the Rockies history, we’ve had more dominant hitters than dominant pitching? I believe with this young core of pitching we have, we’re starting to turn that page, and have people recognize that just because it’s Coors Field, doesn’t mean anything.”