Washington Nationals’ backstop Yan Gomes was behind the plate for Dakota Bacus, Seth Romero, and Wil Crowe’s MLB debuts earlier this month, and the 33-year-old, nine-year veteran told reporters this week that he wasn’t necessarily familiar with any of them but figured things out on the fly as each was called up from the club’s Alternate Training Site.
How do the catcher and his pitchers figure things out and go about attacking hitters when they haven’t worked together often or are working together for the first time?
“It’s a lot of communication that has to go into it, because a couple of these guys, I didn’t end up catching during Spring or even Summer camp or whatever you want to call it, so a lot of it has to do with learning while they’re warming up,” Gomes said.