Yankees’ Gary Sanchez’s latest excuse is scarily familiar

Yankees catcher Gary Sanchez and starting pitcher Luis Severino blamed miscommunication for four balls that got past Sanchez in the first inning of an ugly 8-2 loss to the A’s on Wednesday, September 5, 2018 (9/5/18) in Oakland, Calif.

OAKLAND — It was Gary Sanchez‘s worst inning behind the plate in a young career filled with defensive lapses.

And it came with a familiar excuse.

Luis Severino and Sanchez each said signal confusion was to blame for a wretched first inning in an overall ugly 8-2 loss to the Athletics at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum on Wednesday.

The four-run inning featured four balls that got past Sanchez — two wild pitches and two passed balls, giving the 26-year-old catcher a tie with Houston’s Martin Maldonado for the league lead at 13.

(Sanchez has played 507 innings, mostly due to two disabled list stints. Maldonado has played 858.)

Last season, Sanchez tied for the league lead in passed balls at 16.

It wasn’t the first time the two cited communication problems. The last time Sanchez had caught Severino — July 23 in Tampa — the two got crossed up and got into an argument in the dugout over it.

That game, Severino went five innings and gave up seven runs.

On Wednesday, he lasted just 2 2/3 frames, surrendering five earned runs (six total). 

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Sanchez, via the team’s Spanish translator, took responsibility.

“I had a chance to stop all of them. I just didn’t do it,” he said.

Severino said he and Sanchez use a different set of signs than what he uses with backup catcher Austin Romine, who caught Severino often when Sanchez was out hurt though much of the middle of the season.

Sanchez’s explanation was slightly different.

He said he and pitchers change signs relatively often to keep other teams from stealing them, particularly with runners on second base.

Severino called them “a couple of misunderstandings” and added that he has to “communicate more with Gary.”

What’s been wrong with the communication between Severino and Sanchez? He said it’s just simply that they haven’t worked together often for a while.

“I’ve been working with Romine for a long time and we use different signs,” Severino said. “I think, with Romine behind the plate, it’s different signs we use. We’ve been doing signs, me and Romine, for a long time. And then me and Gary doing another one. Maybe (I’ve been thinking about) about the other signs I did with Romine.”

Severino said he wouldn’t feel more comfortable throwing to Romine than Sanchez.

“It’s not about who is catching. It’s we’re having a little bit of problems and that was it,” Severino said.

Manager Aaron Boone said he thought Sanchez had been better defensively since coming off the disabled list over the weekend. He said that defensive mechanics may have been to blame. He added that he hadn’t spoken to Sanchez about what went wrong yet.

“I think (the first inning was) a really tough inning for him, and we’ve got to dive in and look at if there’s something we see a little bit mechanically that was the reason for that,” Boone said. “We’ve got to dive into that. But I do feel like he’s actually made progress here.”

Brendan Kuty may be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @BrendanKutyNJ. Find NJ.com Yankees on Facebook.