Gary Sánchez Really Couldn't Catch The Ball Last Night

The mighty Oakland Athletics pantsed the sickly New York Yankees last night at the Coliseum, taking two games from a pretty entertaining three-game preview of the most likely AL Wild Card game matchup. Oakland shot out to a four-run lead in the first inning, though Yanks catcher Gary Sánchez was as responsible for putting Luis Severino in a big hole as anyone on the A’s.

After leadoff man Ramon Laureano smacked a double, Sánchez missed a fastball inside, allowing Laureano to reach third and then easily score on a Jed Lowrie single. Two batters later, Lowrie scored on a wild pitch. Matt Olson then hit a double, then made it all the way home on his own thanks to a passed ball and another wild pitch. That’s a lot of mayhem. Two misses were attributed to Severino, but all four were Sánchez’s fault.

Severino lasted just 2.2 innings, his shortest outing of the season. He called it “a mess,” and Sánchez took the blame for the 29-pitch first inning fiasco. Both men attributed some of the confusion to the signs being given by Sánchez, as Severino said he had a different set of signs he used with Yankees backup Austin Romine, while Sánchez said that the team regularly changes up their signs, and the two had their wires crossed in the confusion.

Either way, the Oakland A’s are the hottest team in baseball, and you can’t give them anything for free. Severino and Sánchez seem like the logical pairing for a play-in game, and they have a month to figure out how to throw the ball to each other.