“He needs to improve – bottom line.” Joe Girardi 8/4/17
With that post-game comment in Cleveland, the issue of Gary Sanchez’s defense was the number one topic after the Yankees dropped their fourth game in a row. The tabloid newspapers ran wild with the story. Is it a legitimate issue? In my opinion, absolutely. We know that Girardi almost always protects his players when speaking to the press, so for him to make a stern comment like that, there is real concern on his part. When you are struggling to win games, every element of the game become magnified. Yankee management made trade dead-line moves to help the first place (at the time) Yankees “go for it”, and since have dropped 4 games in the standings, and now trail the 1st place Red Sox by 3 games.
Some feel it’s a non-issue because Sanchez is a young player just going through growing pains and even if he doesn’t improve on blocking balls in the dirt, he’s a far superior hitter than Romine and therefore the pluses far outweigh the minuses. I don’t see it that way.
I look at Gary Sanchez’s problem as a regression defensively from last year. He has allowed 12 passed balls which leads the league (and he missed nearly a month on the DL from 4/9 to 5/5). The key issue in my opinion is, at times he lacks discipline in his approach. One of which is blocking balls in the dirt. Speaking of which, Gary also at times has a lack of discipline with balls in the dirt when batting. He has swung at / chased pitches out of the zone. I wrote a post last December expressing a concern that seemed to go unnoticed
Another point to consider is that the Yankees went on their best run in early April when Sanchez went on the DL and Romine was behind the plate every day. Pitchers like to throw to Romine because he calls a good game. He has a good feel for finding out quickly which pitches are working on a given day. Few pitchers shake him off when he puts a sign down. To further that point, the Yankees traded for two starting pitchers for the stretch run, Sonny Gray and Jaime Garcia. Has Gary worked as hard as possible in the bullpen before games to learn, and build a rapport with his new battery-mates ? From some reports I read, I would say no.
The bottom line is that Gary Sanchez has all the talent in the world. Everyone is rooting for him, but he must understand that a lack of discipline, hustle and hard work is not acceptable. I look back at a game in Chicago vs. the CWS on June 28th when Girardi was scolding Gary in the dugout between innings for not blocking balls in the dirt, and then a few innings later, Sanchez barely ran when he grounded into a double-play. Girardi protected Gary that night, saying he wasn’t scolding him and also that he told Gary not to run hard because of a slight groin pull. Maybe Girardi did not do him any favors back then. Maybe he should have benched Sanchez after not running the ball out in June, to get his attention. The timing now (during a pennant race) is impeccably bad.
The Yankees need to absorb some of the blame here because they built up Gary’s ego with premature bobble-heads and nick-names. This is a very fixable problem. The talent is there. The only need is for a more disciplined approach on both sides of the plate. The Yankees need to do something they should have previously.
Time for …
Kraken’-down on The Kraken.
We all love Gary Sanchez. He should just consider this some tough-love.
Eventually the Yankees & Gary will benefit from it.
As always,
GO NYY
