TORONTO — Jazz Chisholm Jr. reached the Bronx as a jolt of pure energy, a switch-hitting spark who once looked like the centerpiece of the next great New York Yankees team. A year later, the feeling around him has soured.
The Yankees opened a weekend series at Rogers Centre on Friday night and lost 3-1 to the Toronto Blue Jays. Chisholm managed one hit in four trips. He is now 5-for-his-last-35 at the plate.
That skid is only the surface. For much of the summer, Yankees fans have watched their second baseman sink through the worst offensive season of his career. The frustration has been building for weeks.
The timing could not be worse. Chisholm is playing for a new contract, the Yankees are fighting for postseason position, and rivals across MLB are watching a former All-Star unravel in real time.
It boiled over earlier in the week, when Chisholm spoke candidly about his slump. Instead of sympathy, the honesty drew scorn. Some fans branded him a diva. Others accused him of coasting through a lost year.
Then came Friday night. A new lowlight handed the anger a fresh target.
A mental lapse on the bases reignites the anger
The flashpoint came on the basepaths, not at the plate.
With two outs, Chisholm stood and watched a fly ball hang in the air after a Yankees teammate made contact. He appeared to lose track of the count. The Blue Jays chased it down to end the inning, and Chisholm reacted late, nearly stranding himself in a damaging spot.
It was not the first time this season he lost track of the outs while running the bases.
The clip spread within minutes. Reporter Dan Clark shared the video and needed only a short caption.
“Jazz Chisholm forgot the number of outs again,” Clark posted on X.
For a Yankees fan base already on edge, the mistake was gasoline.
Yankees fans turn against Chisholm
The backlash arrived fast. After Chisholm’s comments spread online, Yankees fans flooded social media with criticism, seizing on his spring-training boast that he could chase a 50-homer, 50-steal season. The mockery was relentless.
“Thought you were going 40/40 this year little guy? The biggest diva in the sport. Couldn’t have happened to a more deserving player,” one fan wrote.
Others questioned whether he had adjusted his approach at all, framing his struggles as stubbornness rather than bad luck.
“What has he even tried? His approach looks the same. Blinding arrogance,” another fan commented.
“How about your approach to the AB sucks, swinging for fences for HRS chasing high fastballs & low off the plate off speed pitches. Takes strikes. Swings at balls,” another fan replied.
The 50-50 boast came up again and again, thrown back at him as the slump dragged on.
“Still trying to go 40-40 on every swing. Fundamentals are lacking,” another fan responded.
“You treat your bat like a shovel for starters. Always swinging at s*** in the dirt,” another fan posted.
The pile-on stretched across dozens of replies, a mix of frustration over his production and anger at a player many feel has not delivered on his talk. For a Yankees fan base already on edge over the lineup, Chisholm became an easy target.
One fan questioned how the Yankees keep sending him out there.
“Wow…how do they continue to put up with that,” the fan wrote.
Others demanded a benching in blunt terms.
“He needs to be benched,” one fan said.
Another kept it brief.
“Tired of his act,” the fan posted.
Chisholm and Boone address the slump
Chisholm has not ducked the struggle. Speaking to The Athletic’s Chris Kirschner, he described a season with no simple answer.
“If I knew, I would already have fixed the problem. Even when I think I’m getting going hitting, it’s still an out. I’m still hitting it right at someone. I can hit it 107 (mph) and still hit it right at someone,” Chisholm said.
Yankees manager Aaron Boone was asked about his infielder’s mindset. Boone cast the slump as the price of high standards.
“He expects to be great,” Boone told Kirschner. “But that’s part of this game. You’ve gotta handle that. Different guys say different things publicly. They’re just that. It’s a grind of a season for everyone involved.”
Boone said Chisholm is handling the pressure, even without the results.
“You’ve got to be able to handle all of the things, and he is. He hasn’t found that stretch of play that he’s obviously done with us the last couple of years and that he’s accustomed to and that he expects,” Boone said.
The numbers behind the walk-year stakes
The context behind the outrage is stark. Chisholm is batting .216 across 394 at-bats, with 85 hits, 17 home runs, 48 RBIs, and 31 stolen bases. He has struck out 135 times in 443 plate appearances. His on-base percentage sits at .296, and his OPS is .687.
The fall is jarring. In 2025, Chisholm hit 31 home runs and made the All-Star team. The 40/40 chatter that once trailed him now reads as a punchline.
The stakes sharpen the story. Chisholm is in the final months of a one-year, $10.2 million contract and will hit free agency this winter. He has earned more than $21 million in his career.
His future in the Bronx looks uncertain. The New York Post’s Ryan Dunleavy reported that it is widely believed around baseball the Yankees do not plan to re-sign him, pointing to on-field antics that clash with the so-called Yankee Way, even as he supplies left-handed power, athleticism, and regular-season production a thin lineup lacks.
If the Yankees move on, the second-base search could run through familiar names. Gleyber Torres, Jeff McNeil, and Luis Arraez have surfaced as possibilities, while Anthony Volpe looms as an in-house option after a utility experiment at Triple-A.
A fading star running out of runway
The Yankees sit at 68-54, second in the American League East and squarely in the wild-card race. Every game now carries postseason weight.
That is what makes the Chisholm saga so tense. New York needs the player who terrorized pitchers a year ago, not the one losing track of outs on the bases.
For now, he keeps hearing it from the stands and the timeline. The series in Toronto runs through the weekend, with his slump, his walk year, and his standing with the fan base all unresolved.
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