Wells homers twice in Triple-A as he nears return to Yankees

NEW YORK -- Austin Wells has rediscovered his home run stroke.

The Yankees catcher homered twice on Thursday, playing his second Minor League rehab game with Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. Wells drove in three of the RailRiders’ runs in a 7-5 loss at Columbus.

Wells has been on the 10-day injured list since June 6 due to cervical headaches. Yankees manager Aaron Boone said the tentative plan is to keep Wells with Scranton/Wilkes-Barre at least through Friday’s doubleheader at Columbus.

“We haven’t made any decisions yet,” Boone said. “[The homers] were good to see. He did a lot of cage work again yesterday, working on some things that he and the hitting coaches have wanted to work on.”

Boone said Wells has been working with Jarret DeHart, the club’s director of hitting.

“They feel like they’ve had a couple of really good days of work,” Boone said. “Then obviously today, he goes out and gets some results, so that’s a good thing to see. We want to keep building on that.”

Serving as the RailRiders’ leadoff hitter, Wells pounced on Columbus starter Pedro Avila, blasting the right-hander’s first pitch (a 93.2 mph fastball) over the center-field fence.

He popped out to second base in his next at-bat and flew out to left in his third at-bat. With a runner aboard in the seventh inning, Wells cracked a 91.6 mph Ryan Webb fastball for his second home run of the afternoon.

Wells was batting .166 with four homers, seven RBIs and a .533 OPS in 145 at-bats before going on the IL.

With Wells on the injured list, J.C. Escarra has received reps as the starting catcher, entering Thursday’s contest batting .195 (15-for-77). Ali Sánchez has gone 4-for-14 (.286) across seven games since being promoted from Triple-A.