Yankees place Austin Wells on IL, call up J.C. Escarra one day after demotion

The state of the Yankees’ catching position has not been good this season, but now it is in flux.

In a span of 24 hours, the Yankees went from optioning J.C. Escarra to Triple-A and calling up Ali Sánchez to placing Austin Wells on the injured list shortly before Saturday’s game with “cervical headaches” and calling Escarra back up.

When Aaron Boone spoke to reporters two and a half hours before the scheduled first pitch between the Yankees and Red Sox on Saturday, there was no indication that Wells was dealing with something physically, other than him struggling mightily at the plate for most of the season. 

The right-handed hitting Sánchez was in the lineup on Saturday night, but that was believed to be only because the Red Sox were starting lefty Ranger Suárez. 

Now, the Yankees will have to figure out how to split the workload between Sánchez and Escarra while Wells — who had started 45 of the Yankees’ 63 games before Saturday — is on the 10-day IL. 

If the Yankees had known that Wells’ physical issues were serious enough for an IL stint, they presumably would not have gone through the hassle of telling Escarra he was being demoted to Triple-A on Friday night.

“It just felt like, with our catchers struggling a little bit offensively obviously, just felt like the opportunity exists for Ali to get up here and give us a different look, and give J.C. a chance to go down there and play a little more regularly,” Boone had said before the Yankees changed course.

“There’s some things he’s working on offensively that I really — not only has he already done a great job behind the plate, but I do feel like there’s an offensive player in there at this level. But I think some regular reps down there hopefully will serve him well and hopefully Ali can come up here and provide a little bit of a spark and a different look too.”