BOSTON — Jazz Chisholm Jr. asked for the leadoff spot. He did not last long enough to bat there twice. The Yankees second baseman talked his way into the top of the order Sunday, then got himself thrown out of a game his team could not afford to lose a hitter in.
His sixth-inning ejection at Fenway Park left the Yankees a man short in a 5-4, 10-inning defeat that completed a four-game sweep by the last-place Red Sox.
The timing turned a flash of temper into a talking point. New York is already missing Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton and Trent Grisham, and the offense has been scraping for runs all weekend.
Losing the leadoff man in a must-win game, on a self-inflicted ejection, did not sit well inside or outside the clubhouse.
Chisholm was rung up on a check swing to end the sixth, furious that home plate umpire Adam Hamari called him out without asking for help. What followed, a helmet spiked into the dirt, an early exit, and a cleared-out locker before reporters arrived, has put the impending free agent under fresh scrutiny during the worst stretch of the Yankees’ season.
How the ejection unfolded
Chisholm had lobbied manager Aaron Boone for the leadoff job, and Boone gave it to him for the first time in his Yankees tenure, hoping for a jolt to a stagnant lineup. It was Chisholm’s first leadoff appearance since July 26, 2024, his final game with the Miami Marlins before the trade to New York. The logic was speed: Chisholm leads the team with 24 steals in 28 attempts and owns a .244/.303/.428 career line hitting first.
The spark never came. Boston starter Sonny Gray was carrying a no-hit bid, and Chisholm’s at-bat ended the sixth on a curveball he was ruled to have offered at. He finished 0-for-3 with two strikeouts before the ejection.
Convinced he had held up, Chisholm wanted Hamari to appeal to third base umpire Clint Vondrak. No appeal came. Boone rushed out from the third base dugout to get between his player and Hamari, and first base coach Dan Fiorito sprinted in to help corral him.
While Boone argued, Chisholm pulled off his batting helmet and slammed it into the dirt behind the plate. Hamari, occupied with Boone, missed it. First base umpire Todd Tichenor did not, and he ejected Chisholm on the spot.
Boone explained that he had been trying to buy his player time, and that the helmet was the line that could not be crossed.
“I was trying to keep him in the game in that situation, obviously trying to distract a little bit,” Boone said. “They gave him a little bit of rope out there, arguing his case. The helmet going in a certain direction probably cost him. … You’ve got to try and rein it in there.”
Boone defends the player, not the act
Boone made clear he did not want Chisholm gone, even as he conceded the outburst went too far. He also backed the substance of the complaint, saying the call was worth a second look.
“I never like our guys getting tossed,” Boone said. “Every once in a while, a guy does get tossed. I certainly don’t want him out of the game.”
Asked specifically about the check swing, Boone said he thought it was close enough to merit an appeal.
“You’d always like a check in that situation,” Boone said, calling the play “at least borderline.”
The ejection forced Anthony Volpe into the game cold. He shifted to shortstop, Jose Caballero moved to second base, and the reshuffled lineup had to absorb the loss of a starter on the fly. Volpe, to his credit, drew a ninth-inning walk against Aroldis Chapman and scored the run that tied the game.
Rizzo and a pattern of distractions
The sharpest criticism came from a familiar voice. Former Yankee Anthony Rizzo, working the game on NBC and still close with several players, said Chisholm had to know better in that moment.
Rizzo said the ejection “shows a little bit of immaturity” and pointed to the bind it created for a short-handed team.
“The team’s scuffling, they need him in the lineup, and now he puts Volpe in a tough position coming in completely cold,” Rizzo said.
The episode did not happen in a vacuum. Chisholm, 28, has been generating attention off the field for weeks. On June 22 in Detroit, he took the field with a green apple Blow Pop in his mouth, which drew a public rebuke from Boone. He flipped the narrative the next day by hitting a go-ahead homer and showing off the Yankees’ dugout candy stash for the cameras, earning the nickname “the lollipop kid” from his manager. He also had a dust-up with the dirt cam at Comerica Park and exited a game after fouling a ball off his groin, later revealing he had never worn a cup.
Those moments played as harmless fun when the Yankees were winning. With the team sliding and Chisholm enduring a down year at the plate, the same flair now reads differently. He entered the finale hitting .225 with 12 home runs and a .713 OPS, having opened the season with a .611 OPS through April before settling in.
Boone, speaking before the game, framed Chisholm as a player still searching for his best stretch.
“I feel like he’s been solid now for a couple months, but I always feel like with Jazz, there’s so much more,” Boone said. “We’re waiting for him to really catch fire. I feel like he hasn’t caught fire yet at all this year.”
Chisholm goes silent after the game
The part that drew the loudest reaction came after the final out. Chisholm was nowhere to be found when the clubhouse opened. His locker had been cleared out, and a Yankees public relations staffer told reporters the second baseman had chosen to leave without addressing his ejection.
Beat writers Greg Joyce and Gary Phillips both confirmed Chisholm took off before the media entered the room. It was not the first time he has skipped reporters after a rough night, and the pattern matters in a clubhouse. Teammates tend to notice when a player does not stand at his locker and account for a mistake, and the ejection was a mistake, one that cost a short-handed lineup a bat in a one-run game.
Chisholm’s ejection became the emotional low point of a series full of them, a moment that cost the Yankees a bat they could not spare and handed critics an easy target.
But the silence of a player who always wants the spotlight handed all a strange feeling.
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