Sanchez comes up big with ‘heads up’ defensive play

Gary Sanchez capped another miserable evening at the plate with one of the best defensive plays of his young career.

Minutes after striking out, with the game-winning run on third base — for his 16th consecutive atbat without a hit — Sanchez caught an Aroldis Chapman wild pitch off the backstop, and quickly turned to throw out Houston’s potential go-ahead run at third, allowing the Yankees to pull out the 6-5, 10-inning win Tuesday night in The Bronx.

“We drew that up,” manager Aaron Boone joked. “I thought it was a really heads up play by Gary. ... He put himself in a really good position to receive that ricochet, and throw a bullet to third. That was obviously a big play for us.”

Houston’s Tony Kemp had reached second base, with two outs in the 10th inning, and seemed certain to be standing on third after Chapman’s 100 mph fastball sailed over Sanchez’s ahead.

Instead, the ball rocketed back to Sanchez, who turned, and collected it on a fly, before ending the inning with the perfect throw to Miguel Andujar.

“The reaction was just to try and get the ball as fast as possible,” Sanchez said. “When I turned around, I noticed the ball was coming my way and when I grabbed it, I looked to- wards third base and I noticed Andujar was already at the base waiting, so I just executed the throw there.

“You can’t even think too much. It’s just a reaction. There’s no way to prepare for something like that.”

Sanchez’s notorious defensive struggles had crept up earlier in the game. The catcher committed a throwing error on a Yuli Gurriel stolen base, threw short on a stolen base by Alex Bregman, and also al- lowed a CC Sabathia pitch to get past him.

“When you make a bad throw, you don’t carry that throughout the game,” Sanchez said. “You’ve got to put that aside, and in that one particular moment I was able to make the play and help the team there.”

Sanchez’s struggles at the plate made the defensive gem necessary.

Sanchez went 0-for-5, with three strikeouts, and has now gone four straight games without a hit. Even when Sanchez made contact, he couldn’t get it out of the infield.

During this homestand, Sanchez has gone 1-for-19, with two strikeouts in each of the past three games. He is batting .183 (17-for-93) at home this season.

“It was not a good day at the plate,” Sanchez said. “I felt like I struck myself out a couple times. You’ve gotta put that aside and look forward.”

Or, sometimes, behind.