Everyone Cringed After Yankees Catcher Gary Sanchez Got Hit Below The Belt With A Foul Ball

Playing catcher can be painful. Sure, there’s the stress that your knees experience from sitting in a squat for hours, but there are also the little stingers you suffer over the course of a baseball game. Even something as mild as a foul ball can lead to something that hurts, like a sore foot or a bum hand.

But if you’re Yankees catcher Gary Sanchez, playing the position can be dangerous because you might get hit with a ball right in the beans. During the Yankees’ American League Wild Card matchup against the Minnesota Twins, Sanchez was behind the plate calling pitches, as he has been for much of this year when he’s been healthy. (This is despite the fact that he’s had some issues with passed balls and there were questions about whether he’d start on Tuesday.)

After this pitch, there was about a 500 billion percent chance that Sanchez wished he pulled DH duty on the evening. David Robertson threw a pitch to Twins slugger Brian Dozier, who caught just enough of the ball and made it so this happened.

I cannot stress how badly I feel for Sanchez, because oh my god this looked so painful. This sentiment was shared by Robertson, who felt awful for what happened to his catcher even though he kind of had to suppress a smile.

Look at the pure fear on Robertson’s face when this happened. It’s almost funny as long as you can forget that Sanchez just got drilled in the groin. Anyway, you will never believe this, but Twitter had a whole bunch of jokes about a professional athlete going through this pain.

https://twitter.com/Adam_Jacobi/status/915408617054117889

https://twitter.com/DylansFreshTake/status/915410374349991936

https://twitter.com/billbarnwell/status/915410977918726144

https://twitter.com/purplebuckeye/status/915408051443834880

Somehow, Sanchez stayed in the game. For as long as I live, I will never understand how he did not give up baseball forever after this.