Gary Sanchez made a brutal throw from first base on Saturday, the kind of play that flashed across baseball circles fast and looked every bit as rough as it sounded. The Milwaukee Brewers had Sanchez there for his bat, not his glove, but the ball still had to be handled cleanly once it found him.
That was the point of the move in the first place. Sanchez has shown his powerful swing in the early going, and Milwaukee is keeping William Contreras, one of baseball's best catchers, behind the plate most of the time. If the Brewers want Sanchez in the lineup, they have to find him somewhere else, and first base was where the mistake came from.
For Yankees fans, the scene probably felt familiar. Sanchez spent most of his baseball life behind the plate, and his time in New York wore out in part because his defensive shortcomings at catcher began to bother everyone. Matthew Crory captured the reaction online, writing that Kyle Harrison never had a chance on the play and that even a bad throw would have been expected, not one that wild.
That is the tradeoff Milwaukee is living with right now. Sanchez can change a game with the bat, but the Brewers are asking him to survive somewhere else on the field, and Saturday showed how quickly that can turn messy when the ball leaves his hand.
