Sanchez has his full-time catcher role taken away
BUFFALO, N. Y.—A day after he committed two errors and struck out three times, Gary Sanchez was seemingly demoted. The catcher who came into the season as the clear starter behind the plate will nowsplit even more time with backup Kyle Hi ash ioka going into the playoffs.
“Obviously performance matters and matchups matter and pairing guys matters ,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said after announcing it on his weekly radio spot .“So, I think both, both will probably play an important role for us, if we’re to go deep in these playoffs.” Higashioka had already become ace Gerrit Cole’s personal catch er and Thursday night, Boone paired him with lefty Jordan Montgomery, who has been struggling.
Tuesday was the fourth straight time that Boone has paired Higashioka with Cole. In those four starts, the righty has a 1.00 ERA. He has struck out 34 and allowed three home runs. With Sanchez behind the plate, Cole pitched to a 3.91 ERA with 60 strikeouts in 46 innings pitched over eight games. Opponents had a .265 batting average against and .776 OPS.
The entire Yankees pitching staff has an ERA of 4.61 with Sanchez behind the plate, compared to 3.77 with Higashioka, albeit in 25 fewer games.
Sanchez’ s appeal had always been his power bat, which is why the Yankees went out this winter and hired Tanner Swanson to try and make him a better catcher. This year, however, Sanchez’ s offense is hardly an argument to keep him in the lineup. He was benched to weeks ago to let him focus on his hitting. He showed some improvement after that, but has since gone back to struggling. Before Thursday night’s game, Sanchez was slashing .143/.241/.374 with 10 home runs and 24 RBI with 61 strikeouts in 147 at-bats.
Tuesday night, Sanchez extended his woes, going 0-for-4 with three strikeouts. He is currently onan0-for-11 slide.
Finishing up: J. A. Ha pp will start Friday night against the Marlins, the opening game of the final regular-season series at Yankee Stadium. That would line him up for a potential Game 3 in the Wild Card round of the playoffs if necessary.
Deivi Garcia will “probably” go Saturday, Boone said. That would mean the 21-year-old, who got shelled his last timeout against the Red S ox, would be on short rest throughout the first round of the playoffs.
Boone would not name a Sunday starter, but a source confirmed a published report that Clarke Schmidt would start the regular season finale as an audition for the playoffs. Schmidt posted on social media that he had moved from the alternate training site to New York earlier this week .... After playing three games in a row, Aaron Judge was not in the lineup Thursday night. Boone said that was part of the plan of progression when he returned from his stint on the injured list with a strained right calf.