Toronto Blue Jays<\/a> outfielder explained that he lost a first-inning fly ball by Junior Caminero as it passed through the C-Ring catwalk hanging over the outfield wall, and had a fourth-inning flare by Richie Palacios disappear on him in the lights rimming the stadium.<\/p>\nSanchez, predominantly a right-fielder through seven seasons in the big-leagues, said he\u2019s working to adjust to the different angles and reads off the bat in left field. Of his 601 games in the outfield, 415 have been in right, 117 in left \u2014 38 of them this season \u2014 and 97 in centre.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know I need to improve on my defence because I’m not used to playing left field and I’m going to make the adjustment because I’m athletic enough to play the left field,\u201d said Sanchez. \u201cI know I’m going to be there and the next time I’m going to be better.\u201d<\/p>\n
Based on Outs Above Average, a metric that measures plays made against positional peers, Sanchez has rated among the worst defensive outfielders in the majors at minus-7, with only five others scoring lower. Strangely, he\u2019s at minus-6 OAA in right and just minus-1 in left with nearly even innings at both spots this season.<\/p>\n
Counterbalancing the defensive end is that he entered Thursday\u2019s play with a .794 OPS against right-handed pitchers, second on the Blue Jays only to Alejandro Kirk\u2019s .796, among players with more than 25 plate appearances. His eight homers versus righties are third on the team, although he\u2019s hitting only .161\/.333\/.323 in 39 plate appearances over 14 games since returning from a right ankle sprain July 31.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not worried about my swing, I know my swing’s always going to be there, I’m going to be good (at the plate),\u201d said Sanchez. \u201cI’m trying to make the adjustment on my defence because if I improve my defence, I’m good to be good. I always trust my hitting.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sanchez does regular early work with first base and outfield coach Mark Budzinski, aiming to improve his reads and routes to the ball and manager John Schneider said the Blue Jays will continue supporting the 28-year-old.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIf he didn’t work at it, you get upset. He’s working at it. He understands that every out is important, every out is precious, but you got move on to today, you know what I mean?\u201d said Schneider. \u201cThe more you harp on it or try to dissect it, it’s like, ‘OK, you’re making somebody feel worse.’ So kind of just put your arms around him as much as you can, myself, Bud, everyone, teammates and say, \u2018Hey, man, just move on to the next thing.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 Jesus Sanchez vowed to keep working on his defence after a pair of costly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":865736,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-865735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=865735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865735\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/865736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=865735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=865735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=865735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}