HOUSTON — Gary Sanchez’s rough postseason took another bad turn when he botched Didi Gregorius’ throw to the plate in the bottom of the ninth that allowed Jose Altuve to score on Carlos Correa’s double to give the Astros a 2-1 win over the Yankees in Game 2 of the ALCS.
Still, Brian McCann, now on the other side of the field with the Astros, said he believes too much has been made of Sanchez’s defensive issues. And Sanchez has performed well for the most part this postseason.
“Coming into the league as a young guy, being able to swing the bat, I look at it the other way — I think he’s done an amazing job behind the plate,” McCann said before the game.
“This isn’t easy, you know. Putting the gear on every day, learning hitters’ tendencies, weaknesses, studying, it’s hard, and especially
hard in New York. I think he’s done exceptionally well.”
Where Sanchez has struggled lately is at the plate.
He went 0-for-4 Saturday with two more strikeouts.
In seven games following his two-hit performance in the wild-card win over Minnesota, Sanchez is just 4-for-30 with 15 strikeouts. And in his past three games, the catcher is 0-for-11 with eight strikeouts.
Sanchez has been icing his left shoulder recently but insisted he felt OK, and general manager Brian Cashman dismissed the idea there was any correlation between the shoulder and the sudden slump.
“You can overanalyze it,” Joe Girardi said. “If he is 2-for-20, he is due to get some hits. It could be guys trying too hard this time of year [since it’s] the first time for him in the playoffs, but I am going to bet on him.”
Cashman pointed to better pitching this time of year than the rest of the season, but Sanchez also made an unusually weak throw trying to get Jose Altuve stealing in Friday’s Game 1.
For the most part, though, Sanchez has been solid against the Twins, Indians and Astros.
“First off, the Yankee staff is not easy to catch,” McCann said. “Catching [Masahiro] Tanaka’s split when he throws it for strikes and then he buries one, it’s a 90-mph split, and until you get back there and you see it first-hand, it’s hard to say, ‘Man, you should have got down there and blocked it,’ or, ‘You should have picked it,’ because it’s a hard pitch. He throws it for strikes and he’ll bury one. So I had challenges, as well, catching him. And I think the bullpen’s really tough to catch.”
McCann dealt with many of the same pitchers before he was traded to Houston last offseason in the wake of Sanchez bursting on the scene in the last two months of 2016.
“With Gary coming up and doing what he did, I mean, there’s no argument,” McCann said of the move to make Sanchez the everyday catcher and send McCann packing. “We sawed off a bunch of pieces and we got better, and he was a big reason for it. What he’s been able to do his first year and a half in the big leagues has been remarkable. He’s on a historic pace. There hasn’t been a catcher that’s come into the league that’s hit the way he’s hit to start a career.”