Jazz Chisholm's ugly blunder hangs over Yankees' listless loss to Marlins

Yahoo

2 days ago

MIAMI — The Yankees have a new candidate for the most unforgivable baserunning mistake of the season.
Jazz Chisholm Jr. was doubled off first base on a high pop out to second base in the top of the second inning Saturday afternoon, wandering too far off the bag because he was guarding against Marlins second baseman Xavier Edwards dropping it on purpose and throwing Chisholm out at second.
Manager Aaron Boone said Chisholm 'can't get caught there,' but Chisholm insisted he would not do it differently next time, with the brutal gaffe looming over the 2-0 loss to the Marlins.
'I was just trying to be aggressive, already playing with both the middle infielders out there,' said Chisholm, the former Marlin. 'I saw something that I thought they were going to do. [Edwards] deked it like he was going to [drop it purposely], he didn't do it. Still trying to be aggressive because I played here before, I know how the field plays. Sometimes you get aggressive and you get caught up and you make an out.'
During this skid that has now gone on seven weeks — with the Yankees (60-51) going 18-26, which on Saturday dropped them into third place in the AL East, 4 ¹/₂ games behind the Blue Jays and a half-game behind the Red Sox — there have been too many times when a lack of fundamentals has come back to cost them. Of course, it haunted them in the World Series last October, but Saturday's example may have risen to the top of this season's list.
As has been the case most times when these things have popped up, Boone did not pull Chisholm from the game because, the manager said, it was not a case of him 'dogging it.' The two had a conversation down in the tunnel when Chisholm got back to the dugout after the next half-inning, with Boone searching for an explanation of what happened, but the second baseman remained in the game.
'It's a guy trying to make a play,' Boone said. 'I get it looks bad and it's a bad play. But it's not a case of a guy that's dogging it. … Just because it's going bad right now and the world's on fire, I'm not just going to take guys out for giving a crap.'
At one point, Boone did appear to be ticked off at and express his frustrations with first base coach Travis Chapman in plain view of cameras, though Boone downplayed it after the game.
'The only thing I was saying was, 'Could we have yelled louder once he got into the danger zone?'' Boone said. 'If you feel that danger zone, being real adamant. That's all.'
Edwards said he knew Chisholm could tell he was thinking about dropping it — while standing '20-25 feet off the base, if not more,' Edwards said — because the Marlins would prefer Goldschmidt over Chisholm on first base.
'I tried to catch it as late as possible to give myself a chance to catch and throw and catch him sleeping a little,' Edwards said.
But Chisholm was adamant that if Edwards had dropped the ball, he would have made it to second safely.
'Easily,' he said. 'I was playing the drop. It would have bounced too high and by the time it came down, I would have gotten there, so it would have been fine.'
The Yankees, who mustered just two hits off Eury Pérez and the Marlins bullpen and had their final 14 batters retired in order, had made another out on the bases to end the top of the first. But that one was on a questionable send by third base coach Luis Rojas, waving Trent Grisham around on Giancarlo Stanton's line-drive single to left field, only to be thrown out easily at the plate.
But Chisholm's gaffe was the latest in a line of too many by the Yankees this season — the most recent prior one being Austin Wells getting tagged out in the bottom of the ninth inning Wednesday after thinking there were three outs.
'You're going to make some mistakes on the bases,' Boone said. 'I would argue with you that we're not making — in compared to the league — a number of outs advancing or outs on the bases. I don't think that's true.
'But when you are the New York Yankees and you're losing and you make a mistake, look what just happened. I can show you around the league, it happening all the time. It doesn't make it OK. We want to be as clean and as perfect as we can be, without question. Don't get it twisted. Don't think, 'Oh yeah, it's fine.' It's not fine. But s- -t happens sometimes too. Really good teams that are buttoned up make a mistake trying to advance or run into an out or kick a ball. We have to be better.
'We haven't realized our potential yet. We got to get there. We got a couple months to do it and we better hurry.'