Yankees’ react to Luis Severino stealing popup from Gary Sanchez

A play that you don’t see every day – or ever – occurred in the fifth inning of the Yankees’ 4-1 win over the Tampa Bay Rays on Saturday afternoon at Yankee Stadium.

NEW YORK — Yankees catcher Gary Sanchez had a look on his face that was one part bewildered and one part annoyed as he stared down pitcher Luis Severino for a couple seconds after the first out of the Tampa Bay Rays’ fifth Saturday afternoon at Yankee Stadium.

He’d never had a pitcher charge in from the mound and steal a popup from him in front of the plate, let alone do so with a last-second leaping grab.

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“First time,” Sanchez said after the Yankees’ 4-1 victory.

Sanchez initially lost the ball in the sun when Carlos Gomez hit a high popup in front of the plate, but he found it in plenty of time. 

“Once I turned around, the sun was right there in my eyes,” Sanchez said. “I was able to get in a good spot to catch it and that’s when I heard some footsteps very close to me.”

It would have made an easy catch for Sanchez if Severino hadn’t come barreling in to make a jump catch that resembled a basketball player from the second free throw spot stealing a rebound.

“I had it,” Sanchez said. “I had it! And when I closed my glove, I just caught his glove.”

Severino cracked up telling his side of the story on a day he pitched eight shutout innings to improve to 10-2.

“He didn’t say, ‘I got it’ until I was there, so I went for it,” Severino said. “At the beginning, he didn’t see (the ball). I went there and when I jumped, I heard, ‘I got it.’ But I already was in the air.”

When Severino came down with the ball, Sanchez told him, “‘You took it from my glove.”

Later, Sanchez said, “I was very surprised he jumped and caught it. I think it’s just his instinct to make a play there.”

Surprisingly, Yankees manager Aaron Boone approved of Severino rushing in to steal the ball from Sanchez.

“I thought it was a good play by Sevy,” he said. “It was definitely him being aggressive. I think when the ball first went up, Gary didn’t see it. So the sun being what it was, the way I saw it was Gary looked at it and then kind of looked to his right for maybe help from third base or something like he couldn’t find it. And I think Sevy saw that maybe (Sanchez) didn’t see it. So he said, ‘Maybe I’m going to catch that and went up and got the rebound.

“I like our pitchers, for the most part, to stay out of the pop-up game, but things come up. If you sense something’s happening there … I have no issue with our guy going and being aggressive.”

Aaron Judge, who was the Yankees’ DH in the game, got a kick out of watching the play unfold from the dugout.

Laughing, Judge said, (Severino’s) an athlete out there. I think he’s just trying to win that Gold Glove. So he did a pretty good job of it. That was pretty impressive right there.”

Apparently Sanchez and Severino rehashing the play in the Yankees dugout was entertaining, too.

“Sevy and (Sanchez) are like brothers,” Boone said. “I didn’t hear the banter, but they were kind of going back and forth when they got back in the dugout.

“But I don’t think there was much to (the play) other than if you watch Sevy’s reaction … At least it looked like to me like he saw Gary kind of struggle finding it and then he went in go-catch-it mode, which I thought was a smart thing to do.”

Randy Miller may be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @RandyJMiller. Find NJ.com on Facebook.