“It was about time that I did something. I was due to do some damage after a lot of damage had been done to me!” – Gary Sánchez
Gary Sanchez still doesn’t get that he is playing for the New York Yankees, a storied franchise that has two catchers in the Hall Of Fame (Bill Dickey and Yogi Berra), and another who earned five World Series rings (Jorge Posada).
They did “some damage” too, but I can’t recall a time when any of them called attention to themselves in a game that resulted in a Yankees loss, as Gary Sanchez saw fit to do following a 5-4 Phillies win.
Is he grasping at straws? Maybe, as a way to wash away his performance with three hits for the season and a strikeout rate of three times for every five times Sanchez strides to the plate (19 for 33).
So, let’s say we give Gary Sanchez a mulligan, pretending along with him that more “damage” was on the way. Fast forward then to today in an 8-4 Yankees, and Gerrit Cole win over the Tampa Bay Rays in the first game of a twin-bill.
The batting average has slid even further into the abyss from .097 (then) to .086, and Sanchez is hitless in two tries with men in scoring position.
Enough. Let’s turn, now, to the real impact of what Gary Sanchez said.
Gary Sanchez: New York Yankee Players Don’t Cry
One thousand five hundred sixty-six major league players have worn the Yankee’s pinstripes. Each has their story to tell about the experience they had with the most storied franchise in baseball.
Even in cases where it was clear the uniform did not match the player, rarely (I can’t recall any) did the player call out those anonymous beings who, as Gary Sanchez says, (paraphrasing), “did a lot of damage to me.”
Sonny Gray, a misfit from day one when he arrived in New York via a deadline trade with the Oakland A’s in 2017, bombed as a Yankee. Ditto former Yankees highly touted prospects Ricky Ledee, Mason Williams, Nick Johnson, and a host of others.
Exemplified by Gray, who is having a Cy Young type year with the Cincinnati Reds, they all moved on. More significantly, they did so without a self-designed crucifixion label attached to their departure.
Gary Sanchez: What (Exactly) Has Been “Done To You”?
Surprise, surprise, no one is writing critical columns about Aaron Judge. Does anyone need to explain to Gary Sanchez that’s the way this thing works? You produce, everyone loves you. But if you don’t contribute, well, you know the rest.
Gary Sanchez makes it sound like there is a conspiracy working aimed at getting him to flail at one slider off the plate after another. Or, that he must go up there swinging for the fences, no matter what the game situation calls for.
The Yankees are stuck. With Kyle Higashioka sidelined with an oblique injury, Aaron Boone was forced to call on 40-year-old Eric Kratz from the taxi-squad to catch the second game of yesterday’s split twin-bill with the Tampa Bay Rays.
GM Brian Cashman is hearing it too because he let last year’s catching backup, Austin Romine move on to Detroit where he’s batting .286 with five runs scored and five driven home.
New York Yankee players do not whine, and if they do, they don’t last long wearing the pinstripes. Except that Gary Sanchez does complain, and he has endured.
With little or no choice, Aaron Boone will keep running Sanchez out there, even if he’s about to run out of slots at the bottom of the Yankees (batting eighth now).
Is Gary Sanchez The Beginning And The End Of All Things
Here’s the rub, though. If the GM of the Miami Marlins can find seventeen new players to replace those in quarantine – and soar to the top of the NL East – why can’t Cashman find at least one catcher to fill the void created by Sanchez?
Can his replacement do any worse?
Reset and repeat a week from now. The Gary Sanchez story never seems to change.
Baseball, it is said, is only a game. True. And the Grand Canyon is only a hole in Arizona. Not all holes, or games, are created equal.
