DETROIT -- Gary Sanchez hit his third homer in two games and added a two-run single as the Yankees continued to roll over the Tigers with a 10-2 win Wednesday night at Comerica Park.
The Yankees' seventh win in nine games, and their second straight lopsided win over the Tigers, moved them 11 games over .500 for the first time since June 16. Their lead for the first American League Wild Card spot increased to 3 1/2 games. Detroit fell 17 games under .500 for the first time since 2005.
Once again, Sanchez jumped on an offspeed pitch from a Tigers starter in the first inning and sent it deep to left for his 26th home run, one of two solo homers from Yankees hitters off Jordan Zimmermann (7-11) three weeks after Zimmermann tossed seven shutout innings at Yankee Stadium. Sanchez's single paced a five-run third inning before Didi Gregorius went deep in the fifth, Ronald Torreyes (4-for-4) hit an RBI single in the sixth and Chase Headley added a solo homer off Chad Bell in the seventh.

"I was kind of hoping [it'd be another rout]," Yankees manager Joe Girardi said after seeing Sanchez's homer. "Zimmermann's been really tough on us at our place. ... I don't even know if we scored a run at our place. But our guys adjusted to him well tonight and had a good plan."
Luis Severino (aka "Sevy" for Players Weekend) took the support and cruised, retiring 14 of Detroit's first 15 batters and allowing two singles and a hit batter over five scoreless innings before Ian Kinsler's 13th homer put Detroit on the scoreboard. Severino (11-5) earned his sixth victory in his last seven starts with 6 2/3 innings of one-run ball, striking out eight.

"He threw strikes. He threw a lot of strikes early," Tigers manager Brad Ausmus said. "We got to him in that one inning and got his pitch count up. He's 97-100 mph with a good slider and an occasional changeup. There's a reason he's got just over a 3.00 ERA."
Severino left a slider up in the zone to Kinsler (aka "Bootsie" for Players Weekend), but otherwise enjoyed a relatively mistake-free night, Girardi said.

"I thought he wasn't as sharp in the sixth and the seventh as he was, but I thought he did a good job," Girardi said. "He gives up one run in 6 2/3 and that's pretty darn good. It's hard to ask much more from the young man."
Severino relied heavily on his slider early on against the Tigers' scuffling lineup, and waited until later to start mixing in his changeup, getting two of his eight strikeouts on the night with the pitch.
"It takes a lot of pressure off, but I try to compete every time I get the ball," Severino said of pitching with a big lead. "When you go over there and you see a [six-run lead after three innings], it's good."
MOMENTS THAT MATTERED
The Judge delivers: One night after Aaron Judge ended his streak of 37 consecutive game with a strikeout, he delivered two hits out of two-strike counts. The big one was a drive off the center-field wall with one out in the third inning, scoring Aaron Hicks from second and moving Sanchez to third for a 4-0 lead.

Headley had the distance: The Yankees were comfortably in front by the time Headley turned on Bell's offering and sent his eighth homer down the left-field line, but it was majestic nonetheless. Statcast™ estimated the drive at 423 feet with a 106.3-mph exit velocity.

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"I just think that he has a pretty simple swing. He understands what he needs to do to be prepared. He works really hard. He's gotten more consistent playing time, too, this year. He's been playing every day at short for a while, every day at second, and I think that helps, but he just knows what he needs to do." -- Girardi, on a four-hit night and recent hot streak for Torreyes (aka "Toe" for Players Weekend)

"It's not a lot of fun when you're giving up runs. It's been the same thing. It's been a combination of not throwing strikes and giving up home runs, and usually those things go hand in hand. You don't get ahead of hitters, you put them at an advantage. We've got to execute pitches." -- Ausmus
• Outside of Verlander, rotation really struggling
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According to research on baseball-reference.com, Zimmermann is the first Tiger to give up seven or more earned runs in three consecutive starts since Tommy Bridges in June 1935. Amazingly, Schoolboy Rowe had a similar streak for the Tigers earlier that year. That team went on to win the World Series.
WHAT'S NEXT
Yankees:Jaime Garcia gets the start in Thursday's 1:10 p.m. ET series finale at Comerica Park. Garcia came over to the Yankees from the Twins after spending the first part of the season with the Braves. Still in search of his first win as a Yankee, Garcia is 0-1 with a 6.32 ERA in three starts for New York.
Tigers:Michael Fulmer (10-11, 3.60) will try to thwart a Yankees sweep and avenge his tough-luck loss from his last start when he takes the mound in Thursday's series finale. He became just the second Tigers starter in the last 10 years to take a loss with just an unearned run allowed over seven or more innings on Saturday against the Dodgers.
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