Ex-Yankees lightning rod Gary Sanchez just played an outsized role in Mason Miller's collapse

Jackson Chourio vs. Mason Miller with the game and potentially series on the line. The 22-year-old wunderkind with a slow heartbeat against the game's greatest closer, unleashing repeated easy 104s. You couldn't script it any better - and it wouldn't have been scripted that way without the yeoman's work of former Yankees catcher Gary Sánchez in the season's largest moment to date.

With two men on and two out, the baton hadn't been passed to Chourio, the ideal candidate for dramatics, quite yet. Instead, it seemed as if Sánchez would be an uncomfortable footnote in a series-evening Miller save, miscast and outdated. In the same way Otto Kemp became Chris Sale's final victim in the Phillies-Braves series, Sánchez felt out of place.

He's certainly had a good career, though not the Jorge Posada-like tenure Yankees fans had envisioned a decade ago. He passed the 200-homer threshold this season, socking 12 in part-time duty to reach 201 in total. Hell, he even seemed like a Yankees trade target for a time - and still does, based on the limited role Ali Sánchez is poised to play from the right side of the plate.

But Sánchez is no longer a starting-caliber catcher. He's a bench bat, one who can ably run into one and has posted average-or-better offense in three of the past four seasons (112 OPS+ this year). He is not the budding star he once was. He should've been dismissed on Sunday, especially coming out of the cold.

Except he wasn't. Always known for his patience and poise in New York, even as his strikeout totals crept dangerously high and his batting averages snuck below .200, Sánchez did one of two things we know he's still capable of on Sunday. He held back repeatedly, watching a full-count hanging slider spin far enough in on his hands that he knew he could spit on it and play the prelude to a hero.

Gary Sánchez had the perfectly patient at-bat the Yankees have been missing vs. Mason Miller

Sánchez wasn't miscast. He's been re-cast. He's no longer the bright future, the Baby Bomber. He's going to turn 34 in December, and knows that if he's going to remain in MLB, he'll need to hang back and let the moment come to him, taking what the Mason Millers of the world are willing to give him.

Too often, the Yankees treat an opposing ace in the postseason like an untouchable. It's almost as if, before facing Justin Verlander or Drew Rasmussen, they accept their fate, stumbling through in-zone cutters and diving changeups alike before vowing to get someone else tomorrow. Obviously, it's not supposed to be simple to defeat aces in the postseason, but it often looks like the Yankees aren't interested in varying the gameplan or muddying the waters.

Sánchez, run out of town for becoming a big-leaguer, but not a star, took control of the moment back on Sunday evening. Most importantly, the Brewers' centerpiece star then took it and ran with it, instead of coming up small and refusing the gift. The Yankees do not need Gary back, but they could've learned plenty from his game plan and collected breaths on Sunday evening.

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