Boone benches Sanchez

It appears that Saturday night’s woeful performance was the last straw.

Gary Sanchez was benched on Sunday by Aaron Boone in favor of Erik Kratz and it is uncertain how long he will remain on the bench. The Yankees’ manager was vague about the length of this break after initially saying on Saturday Sanchez would catch on Sunday.

“Just kind of deliberated on it a lot [Saturday] night,” Boone said before the Yankees’ 5-1 loss to the Orioles. “Just feel like this is the way I need to go right now and hopefully a day off or two, or however I decide to do it here, can help get him going. It’s on all of us to get around him and try and help get to where we know he can be.”

It’s hard to fault Boone for this move. Sanchez has given him no choice.

The two-time All-Star received the golden sombrero for striking out four times in Saturday’s ugly loss, has fanned seven straight times and is in a 4-for-41 rut that has seen his average drop to an unsightly .130. He has struck out 48 times in 100 trips to the plate in this abbreviated season, producing a meager .587 OPS, after going deep 34 times last year in 106 games.

Among catchers with at least 50 plate appearances, Sanchez is 32nd in OPS, 42nd in average and his on-base percentage of .237 is 38th.

“We all have our thoughts. I’m not going to get into too much about mechanical stuff, things I see,” Boone said. “I know he’s working on that, I know [hitting coaches] Marcus [Thames] and P.J. [Pilittere] are grinding away at that. But there’s got to be some continued adjustments there that need to happen.

“He’s constantly trying to do things, and when you’ve had the kind of success Gary’s had at the big-league level, you want to just find that good feeling of, ‘I know when I’m right, I’m a beast, I’m a problem for teams.’ I think there are some subtle adjustments that can be made that hopefully can unlock him and he’s got to find those inside.”

Boone spoke to Sanchez prior to telling the media about the move and said the catcher wants to play, but the manager felt this was the right move for him and the team.

“To his credit, behind the scenes, he’s working his tail off and wants to be in there,” Boone said.