Sanchez back in lineup; Boone reunited with ump from ‘savages’ rant
BUFFALO — Gary Sanchez was back in the lineup Tuesday after being benched for two days because of his struggles at the plate.
Aaron Boone said that Sanchez worked hard with hitting coaches Marcus Thames and P.J Pilittere and it is time to see if it translates into the game.
“I feel like honestly, the last few weeks, the work has been good,” Boone said. “Nowwe got to the next step by obviously translating it to where we start to see some results in the game.”
Boone reached the point where he could not keep sending Sanchez out there Saturday night. Sanchez homeredin the series opener against the Orioles (the Yankees’ only win in Baltimore), then struck out seven straight times.
That was the final straw and an all-too-common scene this year. Sanchez has struck out 48 times in 100 at-bats this season. Hehas13hits — seven of which are home runs — and 15 RBIs and 11 walks.
“It has definitely been tough for me not to be able to get the rhythm that I would like at the box,” Sanchez said through Yankees interpreter Marlon Abreu. “We’ve had a lot of injuries and a lot of our teammates have been down for a while, and not not being able to achieve it and help the team in the box, it’s been hard.
“I think I’ve done a good job behind the plate, but there’s definitely been situations where I’ve wanted to help. And I haven’t been able to do that consistently.”
Sanchez is a power hitter who has twice hit over 30 home runs in a season. As a rookie, he hit 20 in 53 games.
Those times, however, have been interspersed with defensive mistakes and slumps. This slump, however, was so epic that the organization had to act.
“Wehad not seen somebody with his capabilities struggle as badly as he had struggled recently,” general manager Brian Cashman said. “So it’s more of a timeout to clear his head and get after it with Marcus and PJ, with less focus of having to call a game that same day and taking care of the defensive side of that.”
Let it be: Boone said that he called umpire Brennan Miller last year to apologize. The fill-in umpire had been called up from Triple A last July when Boone got in his face, mostly to protect Brett Gardner who was about to get tossed. The rant, in which Boone called his hitters “savages in the box,” went viral.
“It was somewhat of an apology and I never wanted to disparage anyone .... those things usually aren’t personal for me. And it is a little bit of a product of obviously a hot mic that I didn’t expect that made it as big a deal as it was. My message was just an apology in the sense that ‘Look, this was never personal, I don’t want to disparage you,’” Boone said. “It wasn’t a case of that. I know howyou can construe it and it wasn’t talking down or anything and I just wanted to be clear that I wasn’t doing that and that I respected him.”
Miller is one of the umpires filling in this season for the senior umpires who opted out of the COVID-19 season. He was behind home plate for the Yankees’ game against the Blue Jays on Tuesday night.