SEATTLE _ Late Wednesday morning, Joe Girardi acknowledged the obvious.
Not only about Gary Sanchez, about whom he was speaking, but any rookie in the majors.
"I'm sure he's going to have some bumps in the road here," the Yankees manager said.
They did not occur Wednesday afternoon.
Homering in his first at-bat of the day, Sanchez helped back a second straight terrific outing by Masahiro Tanaka, who threw seven shutout innings, in a 5-0 victory over the Mariners in front 41,536 at Safeco Field.
The victory gave the Yankees (65-61) a series win over the Mariners (68-58), a 4-2 record on this trip out west, and sent them into Thursday's off day feeling very much in the thick of the AL wild-card race though, at the moment, still a bit of longshot.
Of course, if the 23-year-old Sanchez keeps this up, who knows what might be possible?
The rookie catcher, who entered the day with a .517/.588/.1.207 slash line, with six homers and nine RBIs, in his previous eight games, went 2-for-3. The Mariners were so fearful of Sanchez, they intentionally walked him twice.
The first was in the seventh with Brett Gardner on second and one out, leading to an RBI single by Mark Teixeira that made it 4-0.
It happened again with runners at second and third and none out in the ninth, leading to Starlin Castro's one-out sacrifice fly to make it 5-0.
Sanchez destroyed the first pitch he saw from Hisashi Iwakuma, an 86-mph fastball, and sent it into halfway up the second deck in left, and later doubled. It marked his ninth home runs in his last 44 at-bats and gave Tanaka 1-0 lead.
Tanaka, coming off 7 2/3 shutout innings last Friday in Anaheim, was hit harder than in that outing, but was every bit as effective.
The right-hander, in improving to 11-4 with a 3.11 ERA, allowed six hits. He walked one and struck out five.
Two more rookies teamed up in the second to give the Yankees a 2-0 lead.
Tyler Austin snapped a 0-for-16 skid in the inning with an RBI single, driving in Aaron Judge, who was hit by a pitch with one out and went to second on a single by Aaron Hicks (Hicks improved to 6-for-11 on the trip).
In the bottom of the first Judge, the right-fielder, threw out Robinson Cano at second trying to stretch a single into a double.
The Mariners were mere feet from tying it in the bottom of the second but instead came up empty.
Adam Lind singled with one out and Leonys Martin followed by stinging one to deep right. The ball landed three-quarters of the way up the wall, which put runners at the corners. Tanaka, after Martin stole second, got Shawn O'Malley to ground into a 1-3 force play, then got Chris Ianetta to ground to short.
The Yankees added on in the fourth. Hicks singled to left and reached second when Austin grounded to third and O'Malley, the third baseman, tried to force the lead runner at second and was called safe. Ronald Torreyes improved to 9-for-14 on the trip with a single to left, loading the bases, and Gardner's sacrifice fly to right made it 3-0.
Tyler Clippard replaced Tanaka for the eighth but when two batters reached with two outs, Girardi took no chances.
He brought on Dellin Betances to face pinch hitter Mike Zunino, who struck out. Betances walked a batter with one out in a scoreless ninth.
