Jazz Chisholm Saves Yankees’ Season After Frustration Over Game 1 Benching
NEW YORK — For the second night in a row, with a crowd there to see him, Jazz Chisholm showed them his back. On Tuesday, he rifled through his locker and mumbled monosyllables as reporters asked him if he agreed with manager Aaron Boone’s decision to bench him in Game 1 of the American League wild card series. On Tuesday, back in the starting lineup for Game 2, Chisholm dashed around third from first base on an eighth-inning single, slid on his belly into home plate and lay there, pounding the dirt, for nearly 10 seconds.
Redemption was not on his mind, he insisted later. Winning was.
Well, he got both. His run was the game-winner in a 4–3 victory over the Red Sox, the second straight classic in the best-of-three series. He also saved at least one run—Boston manager Alex Cora thought it was more like two—with a diving stop in the seventh.
“That was the game right there,” said reliever Fernando Cruz, who extinguished a fire that inning to preserve the 3–3 tie and then celebrated so passionately that Boone joked about getting out of his way in the dugout. “That’s something that people don’t notice a lot of times, but I want to make sure it’s mentioned. Jazz saved us the game, completely.”
Chisholm, too, has always played with passion, often to the chagrin of his opponents and sometimes even his teammates. So when he learned that on the heels of a season in which he became only the third Yankee ever (after Bobby Bonds in 1975 and Alfonso Soriano in 2002 and ’03) to hit 30 home runs and steal 30 bases, he would sit in Game 1, he shared his frustration with anyone who asked. Chisholm did not care that as a lefthanded hitter, he was part of a group that hit .166 with a .455 OPS against the Red Sox’ lefthanded ace, Garrett Crochet.
“As tough as Crochet is, he has been especially tough on lefties,” Boone said, explaining why he was sitting Chisholm, lefthanded first baseman Ben Rice and lefthanded third baseman Ryan McMahon in favor of righties Amed Rosario, Paul Goldschmidt and José Caballero. (Crochet allowed one run and struck out 11 in 7 ⅔ innings, so it might not have mattered who was in there anyway.) “There’s no great matchup.”
Chisholm obviously thought he was one. His reaction to his Tuesday benching could have rankled the Yankees, but on Wednesday, they said they understand who he is. “He is a guy that wears his emotions on his sleeve,” Boone said before Wednesday’s game. “I don’t need him to put a happy face on. I need him to go out and play his butt off for us tonight. That’s what I expect to happen.” Afterward, right fielder and team captain Aaron Judge praised Chisholm’s maturity in not letting his disappointment distract him.
Indeed, Chisholm said that by the time he managed his custom New York Aliens team (starring him, Ken Griffey Jr. and Jimmy Rollins) to a 12–1 victory in the video game on Tuesday night, he had moved on.
“All that was clear before I came to the field today,” Chisholm said. “After I left the field yesterday, it’s . It is win or go home for us. It is all about winning.”
Wednesday was a banner day for the players who sat on Tuesday. With a man on first in the first inning, Rice became the sixth player since 2000 to homer on the first pitch of his postseason career. Third baseman Ryan McMahon added a single and a walk. (Rice did not attribute his success to residual frustration over the lineup decision. “I know my role,” he said. “Yesterday my role was to be ready for a big at-bat off the bench, and today I was starting.”)
Chisholm’s role on Wednesday was to key his team to a win. After three lackluster at-bats, he took the field behind lefty Carlos Rodón to open the top of the seventh. Rodón had begun to show signs of weakening both physically and mentally—after he allowed a sixth-inning leadoff homer to Trevor Story to tie the game at 3, he looked furious with himself and walked the next batter, Alex Bregman, on four pitches—and he began the seventh with eight straight balls to put two of the Red Sox’ fastest players, Nate Eaton and Jarren Duran, on base. Boone summoned the right-handed Cruz to face Ceddanne Rafaela, who popped up a bunt. Cruz then induced a fly ball to left field. He got to 3–2 on Masataka Yoshida, and both runners took off. Yoshida lined a ball up the middle, and Chisholm knocked it down. The runners held at second and third. Cruz got Story to fly to deep center to end the threat. Cruz all but burst into flames in celebration.
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“For me, you know what’s going on,” Chisholm said afterward. “You see a ground ball, you gotta stop it. You have to keep it in the infield. You have to stop that run from scoring. I felt at that point it would have been a really crucial run. I was doing what I could to keep the ball in the infield. Not trying to make the play at first base but keep it in the infield.”
An inning later, he worked a walk and then took off when Austin Wells singled to right. When Wells went to congratulate him, Chisholm grinned. “If it was anywhere—left or right—I was scoring,” he said. Wells just laughed. He knows better than to doubt Chisholm.
Boone has insisted he made the right decision on Tuesday, and he may well have. But on Thursday, the Red Sox will start lefty Connelly Early—and Boone will start Chisholm.