SEVY CHASED
Alleged ace KO’d in 3rd as Yanks waste chance to bury A’s
OAKLAND, Calif. — Gary Sanchez being accountable and saying he should have blocked the two passed balls and two wild pitches despite being crossed up in the first inning Wednesday night is nice to hear.
Yet it doesn’t change the fact that he had as bad an inning as a major league catcher can experience and played a big part in a desultory 8-2 loss to the A’s in front of 21,004 at the Oakland Coliseum.
“There were a couple of crossups, but at the end of the day they were near the zone and I feel I have the ability to stop them and I didn’t,’’ Sanchez said of the passed balls and wild pitches that helped fuel the A’s four-run first that the Yankees never recovered from. Sanchez has 13 passed balls.
According to Luis Severino, who lasted a season-low 2 2/3 innings, the problem stemmed from having worked with Austin Romine for a long time while Sanchez was on the DL.
“We use different signs,’’ said Severino, who gave up six runs [five earned], six hits and fell to 17-7. In his last 11 starts, Severino is 4-5 with a 6.84 ERA and has allowed 76 hits in 55 ¹/3 innings.
The A’s cut the Yankees’ lead in the chase to host the AL wildcard game to 3 ½ lengths. The teams also ended their season series at 3-3. If the teams are tied at the end of 162 games the team with the best intra-division record will host the wild-card game. The Yankees are 34-26 against AL East teams; the A’s are 30-34 versus the AL West.
The communication between Severino and Sanchez, who got into a heated discussion earlier this year in Tropicana Field’s dugout, wasn’t the only problem for the Yankees.
Through six innings, Mike Fiers blanked them and allowed two hits after stranding three runners by getting Luke Voit on a bases-loaded grounder in the first.
“If we score a couple of runs in the first, who knows how the bottom of the first unfolds,’’ Brett Gardner said after the Yankees, who have lost six of 10, and dropped 9 ½ games back of the AL East-leading Red Sox.
Even Sanchez’s two-run homer in the seventh couldn’t undo a miserable night that had to leave the Yankees questioning whether they could pair Sanchez and Severino in a loser-goes-home wildcard game.
“We have a few weeks for that kind of stuff to unfold and see where we are at and make those decisions,’’ manager Aaron Boone said. “Do I think those two guys are capable of going out and shoving? Absolutely.’’
Until the wild-card game, the Yankees have 22 games left to begin playing better. They get Didi Gregorius back on Friday and still hope to see Aaron Judge play again before the season runs out of track.
Still, the Yankees need to vastly upgrade how they have been playing lately.
“I want to get rolling, no question about it,’’ Boone said. “We are doing some things well. … No question we have to play better. If we want to get to where we want to go we have to play better. It’s time to start getting consistent.’’
Not to mention watching Sanchez track balls down behind the plate as often as he did in the f irst inning of a terrible game.