Jazz Chisholm had to leave Wednesday’s Yankees game after fouling a pitch directly off himself in the most unfortunate location possible. Yes, again.
The Yankees second baseman caught a foul ball off his own bat in the bottom half of the inning, dropped to the ground, and stayed down for a few minutes before being helped off the field. Aaron Boone called it precautionary. Chisholm called it the worst day of his year.
This is now the second time in roughly a year that Chisholm has fouled a ball off the same area. The first time he played through it. This time the team yanked him for the night out of caution.
The Yankees announced no real injury beyond the obvious bruising, and Chisholm is expected to be available for the weekend series. He’s going to need a different protective setup at the plate, though, because two of these in 12 months is not a coincidence anymore.
It’s the kind of injury that’s brutal to watch and weirdly hard to write about with a straight face. Every broadcaster tried to find the gentlest possible euphemism. The cameras stayed on Chisholm’s facial expression for what felt like five minutes. Boone in the dugout looked at the ground.
The bigger story is that Chisholm has been one of the Yankees’ best hitters all season, and they cannot afford to lose him for any stretch of time. He’s slashing well over .280, leads the team in stolen bases, and has been the player the Yankees pinned their hopes on after Aaron Judge missed two weeks earlier this year.
If this turns into an actual IL stint, the Yankees infield gets uncomfortable in a hurry. They don’t have a great Plan B at second base, and DJ LeMahieu is closer to the end of his career than the middle. New York would need to look outside the organization, and the trade market for infielders is brutally thin right now.
Chisholm has been one of the brightest personalities in baseball since the Yankees acquired him from the Marlins. He bats with style. He talks. He’s exactly the kind of player Yankee Stadium has been missing. Losing him would suck the energy out of the Bronx.
The hope is that Thursday’s MRI comes back clean and Chisholm is back in the lineup by Friday. The team is being cautious for a reason. Aaron Boone has had enough injury news this year without adding another regular to the list.
For the record, Chisholm has a sense of humor about this stuff. He addressed the first incident publicly last year and has joked about needing better protection. He’ll probably joke about this one too once he’s standing upright again.
Yankees fans collectively winced when the foul ball deflected, and then collectively winced again when they saw the slow-motion replay. Some replays don’t need to be slowed down. This was one of them.
Get well soon, Jazz. Try to keep the bat path away from yourself.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
