Mets set to wear 9/11 unis
Awful blown play Sanchez may become symbol of Yankees' season
The Mets will mark the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks with special uniform shirts for Saturday’s game against the Yankees.
Their home whites will be changed to include “NEW YORK” across the front of their jerseys, with the same design and color scheme as those worn by the team during the 2001 season. The right sleeve also will feature the American flag and “9-11-01.”
METS NOTES
Before the game, the Mets also will hold a remembrance ceremony featuring at least 14 players and coaches from their 2001 squad, including Hall of Fame catcher Mike Piazza and manager Bobby Valentine. Former Yankees manager Joe Torre also will be in attendance.
The Mets will wear first responder caps representing the FDNY, NYPD, Port Authority Police, the Dept. of Sanitation and the Dept. of Correction.
Due to the U.S. Open next door, the Mets are recommending that fans attending the game take mass transit and be in their seats before 7 p.m.
➤ Jacob deGrom (elbow) played catch on flat ground before the game from a distance of around 90 feet.
“When he goes off the slope, we can start talking about dates and what’s going to happen,” manager Luis Rojas said.
The two-time Cy Young Award winner, who hasn’t pitched since July 7, had clarified Thursday that he wouldn’t be throwing if he had “a compromised ligament.” The comments were his first since team president Sandy Alderson had said two days earlier that deGrom had healed from a “sprain” or low-grade tear of the ulnar collateral ligament.
➤ Dominic Smith was back on the bench Friday night after going 0-for-4 with three strikeouts Thursday in Miami in his first start since Aug. 27. Rojas again went with Jeff McNeil in left field, but Smith popped out as a pinch-hitter in the seventh.
“We wanted to get Dom involved [Thursday] with his success against the lefties. We know there’s another lefty again tonight. But he took some pitches and was late on some fastballs, not being quite himself,” Rojas said. “But there’s games left and Dom’s a good hitter . ... I know he’s going to grind through things and give his best to the team. He didn’t have a good day [Thursday], yes but you’ve got to count on Dom. … Dom’s a guy who’s going to put in work.”
THIS CAN be determined in a millisecond, or in far less time than Gary Sanchez had at his disposal when Joey Gallo fed him with a perfect first-inning relay throw Friday night at Citi Field:
If the Yankees keep plummeting all the way out of the playoffs, then Sanchez’s failure to tag Jonathan Villar on that play in this eventual 10-3 Subway Series loss to the Mets, will be the defining moment of this batspit crazy campaign.
“It’s a big play, it’s an important play,” Aaron Boone acknowledged after his Yankees (78-63) lost their seventh straight game. “But you’ve got to deal with that over the course of a season, of a game.”
Oh, Villar’s capitalizing on Sanchez’s milquetoast execution — recognized only after Manhattanbased umpires overturned their Queens counterparts via Luis Rojas’ replay challenge — merely tied the game at 1-1, and the Yankees
actually took one more lead in the second inning, 2-1, before losing pitcher Jordan Montgomery unraveled in the third by giving up five runs. Two other Yankees committed errors, although it sure appeared that Sanchez could have prevented one of them, Gio Urshela’s wide throw home in the third. Beleaguered shortstop Gleyber Torres could point no fingers at Sanchez after his seventhinning high throw. And the visitors’ offense once again underwhelmed. The Yankees struck out 10 times in seven innings against Mets starter Tylor Megill to give the rookie a career high.
But Sanchez’s mistake on a sequence that started with a Javier Baez single to Gallo in left — and a terrible send of Villar by Mets third-base coach Gary DiSarcina, by the way — was so egregious, so unnecessary, so symbolic of his worst moments to which the Yankees recommitted last winter that it carried the night ... and could carry far more if the Yankees, now losers of seven straight, can’t halt their hemorrhaging. Gallo’s throw had Villar nailed by some 20 feet, and Sanchez’s decision to sidestep the tag allowed Villar to sneak underneath him. Beyond brutal. “Obviously he’s going to be out easy,” Boone said of Villar, “... and
I think [Sanchez] felt like, because he was so out that he’d pull up, he got out of his crouch and athletic position. In that spot where you’ve got a guy dead to rights, you’ve got to just lower your body, maybe initiate the contact, but remain athletic in your legs.”
Asked if he thought that mistake impacted the Yankees for the rest of the game, Boone said, “Possibly.”
Miraculously, the Yankees still hold a playoff slot because the Orioles, of all clubs, stopped the Blue Jays’ winning streak at eight games in Baltimore, the final four of those Toronto wins came through a Bronx beatdown of the
Yankees. Hence the Yankees lead the Blue Jays (77-63) by a half game for the American League’s second wild-card slot.
That represents the tiniest consolation for a team that can’t get out of its own way. That couldn’t capitalize on a perfect throw by recent acquisition Gallo, a relay that would’ve ended the inning on a high note, preserved a lead and perhaps boosted the struggling newcomer’s spirits.
That is amid a 2-11 nosedive that constitutes the Yankees’ worst stretch since 2000, as per ESPN.
“We’ve been the streakiest team in the league,” DJ LeMahieu said, correctly.
Sanchez has partially rewarded the Yankees for their faith in him, rebounding to slightly above league average offensively and cutting down on his passed balls, if still no Gold Glover behind the plate. A play like this really stings, though. It fuels his many critics. It stumps his supporters.
All the Yankees have to do is turn themselves back around for this lowlight to turn into a footnote. Can they handle that challenge? We’ll need far more time than a millisecond to find out, and if the answer is no, it’ll be a long, painful demise for this club and those who love it.