Gary Sanchez’s bat can win games for the New York Yankees. But his legs (and brain?) essentially cost his team a victory Monday night.
With the bases loaded and two outs in the ninth inning of a one-run game against the Tampa Bay Rays, Sanchez laced a hard grounder to second baseman Daniel Robertson, who flipped the ball to shortstop Willy Adames to try to get the force out at second base. Adames didn’t get there in time, though, so Sanchez simply needed to reach first base safely to tie the score.
Alas, this did not happen. The Yankees catcher loafed out of the batter’s box, and a heads-up Adames fired to first to nab Sanchez for the game-ending out.
How the game ended with Gary Sanchez's at-bat 👇 pic.twitter.com/Y1P2BXb5Qk
— YES Network (@YESNetwork) July 24, 2018
The last replay shows Sanchez clearly not running at full speed. After the game, he admitted he thought there would be an easy force out at second, considering how hard he hit the ball.
“But that didn’t happen,” Sanchez said through an interpreter, via ESPN.com. ” …Â I should’ve run harder. I could’ve done a better job, for sure.”
That play alone was enough to land Sanchez in hot water, but it wasn’t his only lack-of-effort gaffe of the evening. In the first inning, the 25-year-old allowed Tampa Bay’s Jake Bauers to score from second base after he seemingly dogged it while tracking down a passed ball that went up the third base line.
(The play happens at the 20-second mark of the video below.)
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As you might expect, the New York media lit into Sanchez after the 7-6 loss.
The back page: Gary Sanchez sure gave his detractors a lot of ammo Monday night https://t.co/1XvMWbT0dJ pic.twitter.com/mYmXctiKJ7
— New York Post Sports (@nypostsports) July 24, 2018
After an unimaginably tough day at @NYDailyNews, all we can do is press on, and do our very best to carry on the work of all the great journalists who are no longer here. So, here is our @NYDNSports back page for Wednesday: https://t.co/IOjwjyg6WX @espn @MLB @BackPageGuyNYDN pic.twitter.com/heYrhAOM5Y
— Scott Chiusano (@scottchiusano) July 24, 2018
The Rays’ social media account even piled on with some low-key trolling of Sanchez’s poor effort.
Instincts and effort.
Willy's got plenty of both. pic.twitter.com/G7gNXFsjoi
— Tampa Bay Rays (@RaysBaseball) July 24, 2018
A little hustle goes a long way. pic.twitter.com/7Fb34wHCFO
— Tampa Bay Rays (@RaysBaseball) July 23, 2018
New York now sits six games back of the red-hot Boston Red Sox in the American League East so Sanchez couldn’t have picked a worse time to lollygag.
