SEATTLE � Beginning with Gary Sanchez's titanic, two-run home run � a shot that threatened to exit T-Mobile Park entirely � the Yankees blasted their way to a three-game sweep.
Aaron Judge belted his sixth homer in his last nine games and Mike Ford delivered a tie-breaking, solo homer in a four-run fifth inning, sending the Yankees to a 7-3 win against the Mariners on Wednesday afternoon.
D.J. LeMahieu added a solo shot in the ninth, giving the Yankees 70 home runs in 28 games in August, extending their MLB team record total for homers in a calendar month.
Three Yankees pitchers limited the last-place Mariners to just one hit through the first eight innings.
But in improving their record to 21-5 at Seattle, dating to the 2011 season, the Yankees had concerns about third baseman Gio Urshela, who left the game due to left groin tightness according to the YES Network.
Urshela went 1-for-2 with an infield hit and a strikeout.
In the home fifth inning, Urshela was replaced by Didi Gregorius, seeing his first game action since being drilled in the upper right shoulder by a Clayton Kershaw fastball in Sunday's first inning.
The AL East-leading Yankees have hit 18 home runs in their last six games, winning five of those games.
After dropping the first three games of this road trip at Oakland, the Yankees completing a winning (5-4) Western swing � capturing two of three interleague games against the Dodgers before sweeping Seattle.
In a matchup of pitchers who were traded for one another, James Paxton outdueled fellow left-hander Justus Sheffield.
Over five innings, Paxton (11-6) gave up just one hit � a fourth-inning, two-run homer by Kyle Seager. Paxton also issued five walks and threw a wild pitch.
Making just his second big-league start, Sheffield (0-1) surrendered two of the Yankees' home runs, starting with Sanchez's 30th homer of the year.
That first-inning moon shot slammed off the to of the second deck in left field. Ford also connected off Sheffield, hitting his fourth homer in his last three games, all of them off left-handed pitching.
"It's been nice to see," Brett Gardner said late Tuesday night of the Yankees' resiliency on this trip.
"Obviously, we didn't play our best ball in Oakland. But going into L.A., playing a really tough team there and coming into this series and continuing to play well � it says a lot about our team," Gardner said.
The Yankees have won 18 of their last 21 games at Seattle, dating to the 2013 season.
"Our motto coming into every series is not just (wanting) to win, we want to dominate," Judge said on Tuesday night, before the Yankees improved their August record to 20-8, the most wins in the majors this month.
