Yankees solve at least 1 burning Wild Card question

Yankees manager Aaron Boone told reporters that catcher Gary Sanchez, despite how bad he’s been this season, will undoubtedly be his Wild Card catcher.

NEW YORK — The Yankees say they haven’t decided who will start on the mound for the American League Wild Card Game.

But who will be behind the plate? That was an easy one for manager Aaron Boone.

Asked if Gary Sanchez would, without question, be his catcher for the do-or-die contest Oct. 3, Boone didn’t hesitate.

“Yes,” he said.

Sanchez is hitting .184 with 16 home runs and 47 RBI in 299 at-bats this season.

He’s been terrible in September, too, hitting .167 with two bombs and five RBI in 16 games.

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Boone dropped Sanchez into No. 8 in the lineup for Saturday’s game against the Orioles at Yankee Stadium.

It was his first start that low in the order this season.

Still, Boone said, he expects Sanchez to break out.

“I still go back to,” Boone said, “I think he’s just a natural hitter that I think it’s hard to hold those guys down for such a long period of time. So that’s what I’m going on. And hopefully there is that stretch in there where he really gained some momentum with some good and positive at-bats, where he gets some results and it can kind of snowball from there because of who he is as a hitter. So Gary’s always working on his craft, he’s always working hard on his hitter. He’s done a pretty good job of controlling the strike zone. If he continues to do that, I feel like results will follow and hopefully we will see a stretch in him at some point.”

Boone said Sanchez has “hit into some tough luck.”

“All of our kind of internal numbers absolutely suggest that,” Boone said. “But with that said, and I’ve said this a lot to you guys over the years, I think when you struggle and you don’t get results, man, as a hitter, you chase the results sometimes, or you want to get a hit or you want to drive this run in so bad. And that can really work against you as a hitter. One of our challenges to him, and my challenge to him all year has been, go up and have a good at-bat.”

He also leads the league with 14 passed balls.

“Especially since he’s come back from the disabled list,” Boone said, “I think the bulk of his defensive work has been really strong, as far as receiving stuff, the ability to kind of shut down the running game or really slow it down, I feel like he’s been really good in the game-calling department and the game planning stuff and we’ve been really diving into that.”

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