Sanchez again a liability behind plate
Gary Sanchez better keep hitting.
While there’s no denying his impact at the plate, which could well provide the difference in Tuesday’s wild-card game against the Twins, the Yankees still have to be concerned about his defensive miscues, which led to two runs in the fifth inning of a 9-6 loss to the Rays in The Bronx on Thursday.
The Yankees had a 4-1 lead to start the fifth, when both Sanchez and Sonny Gray fell apart.
With one out and runners on the corners, Sanchez couldn’t corral a Gray wild pitch and allowed it to get far enough away from him for Mallex Smith to score from third.
Sanchez’s errant desperation throw to Gray at the plate moved Corey Dickerson to third on the play.
That immediately hurt the Yankees when Sanchez failed to handle a low pitch by Gray to Lucas Duda and Dickerson raced home to make it 4-3, this time on a passed ball.
Gray, perhaps rattled, followed by walking Duda for a third straight time, and Wilson Ramos belted a two-run homer to give Tampa Bay its first lead.
The right-hander was soon gone from the game. Afterward, he defended Sanchez.
“I was all over the place all night,” said Gray, who walked a season-high five batters. “I made it really hard on Gary from the first inning with a lot of balls in the dirt. I thought he did a great job with me throwing that many pitches in the dirt. It’s hard to know what the ball is gonna do.”
Sanchez’s struggles behind the plate are nothing new. They earned him a benching and some rare public criticism from Joe Girardi last month, but on Thursday, the manager also protected Sanchez, who took a bounced Gray pitch off his neck in the second and then a pitch off the shoulder from Tommy Hunter while batting in the fifth, both of which resulted in visits from the trainers.
“He’s played pretty well,” Girardi said. “He had a lot of balls he had to block tonight and a couple got by him. I feel good about his defense. I feel good about the progress he’s made. Will he get better as time goes by? Absolutely.”