NEW YORK — Jazz Chisholm Jr. walked back toward the Yankees clubhouse Thursday carrying the kind of box score that has followed him too often this season. Four at-bats produced no hits and three strikeouts. The Yankees had just been shut out 1-0 by the Seattle Mariners at Yankee Stadium, wasting a strong afternoon from Max Fried and missing a chance to finish a three-game sweep.
Weston Wilson supplied the only run with a second-inning homer off Fried. Logan Gilbert threw six scoreless innings for the win, Fried took the loss and Andrés Muñoz earned his 21st save. New York finished with four hits and went 0-for-5 with runners in scoring position.
For Chisholm, the empty afternoon carried more weight than one loss. The 28-year-old second baseman is playing on a one-year, $10.2 million contract in his final season before free agency. He entered 2026 coming off a 31-homer, 31-steal season, an All-Star selection and a Silver Slugger Award. In spring training, he spoke openly about chasing a 50-homer, 50-steal season.
Instead, 112 games have produced a sharply different profile. Chisholm is batting .216 with a .296 on-base percentage and .391 slugging percentage. He has 17 home runs, 48 RBIs and 31 stolen bases. His .687 OPS is 126 points below his .813 mark from 2025. Over his last 11 games, he is 5-for-36 with 16 strikeouts.
The timing matters. New York enters Friday at 68-53, 6.5 games behind Tampa Bay in the AL East while holding the top American League wild-card position. With 41 games left, Chisholm has little time to reshape a contract year that opened with star-level expectations.
Boone puts the problem on missed opportunities
That is where Aaron Boone’s postgame assessment became more than a routine slump explanation. Asked why Chisholm has struggled, the Yankees manager initially had no answer. After a long pause, Boone pointed to an uncomfortable issue for a pending free agent: hittable pitches are being missed.
Boone said Chisholm has not consistently converted hittable pitches into the contact the Yankees expected after his breakout 2025 season.
“Missing his pitch a fair amount. Some of the balls that he’s hit well have kinda been that one-hopper to second base when maybe he gets a good pitch to drive and do something with. That’s the subtlety of this game and baseball. You gotta make hay when you get your pitches,” Boone said.
The underlying numbers reinforce that gap. MLB Statcast data show his expected weighted on-base average has fallen from .346 to .289, in the 13th percentile. His expected slugging percentage has dropped from .481 to .364, while his barrel rate has declined from 15% to 9%.
A good approach has not produced a hot streak
Boone did not describe Chisholm as undisciplined. His chase rate has moved only slightly, and his whiff rate has improved. The Yankees manager sees patience and generally sound decisions, but too little damage when the count turns favorable.
Boone said the missing piece has been the extended run of production Chisholm delivered for the Yankees in 2024 and 2025.
“Because I feel like overall, he’s making fairly good swing decisions,” Boone said. “He’s not chasing; there’s patience in there. But probably whether it’s just missing, maybe a foul off, maybe swinging through more pitches than he’s used to. Again, just hasn’t gone on that hot streak really at any point.”
Chisholm’s own diagnosis was even simpler after the shutout. He acknowledged that pitchers are giving him mistakes in the strike zone and that he has not punished them.
“Missing fastballs down the middle. Missing sliders down the middle. I can’t tell you why,” Chisholm said. “Or else I would be hitting.”
The season has never fully escaped its rough beginning. Chisholm went 22-for-109, a .202 average, with 35 strikeouts and a .611 OPS through his first 30 games. He has delivered important hits since, but not the sustained surge the Yankees saw in 2025.
Contract-year stakes sharpen the Yankees’ concern
The 2025 comparison is stark. MLB records show Chisholm hit .242/.332/.481 with 31 homers, 80 RBIs and 31 steals in 130 games. He became only the third Yankees player, after Bobby Bonds and Alfonso Soriano, to post a 30-homer, 30-steal season. His final arbitration salary rose to $10.2 million.
His speed remains a Yankees weapon, and the power has not disappeared. But his overall offensive value has fallen at the worst contractual moment. Chisholm can reach free agency after the season, making the final 41 games part of both the Yankees’ postseason race and his open-market résumé.
Boone also rejected the idea that Chisholm’s lofty spring goals should excuse the uneven year. He framed expectations as part of what players must manage across an MLB season.
“Well, I don’t know, he expects to be great, but that’s part of this game,” Boone said. “You gotta handle that. And, look, different guys say different things publicly. [But] they’re just that. It’s a grind of a season for everyone involved, and you gotta be able to handle all the things, and he is.”
Chisholm still sees 41 games to rewrite the finish
The Yankees have not removed Chisholm from their plans. He remains their regular second baseman and a major speed element. Wednesday, even amid the slump, he drew a bases-loaded walk during New York’s 10-5 comeback win over Seattle.
Thursday brought the opposite result. Chisholm struck out three times as the Yankees were shut out for the seventh time this season. His strikeout streak reached seven games, and the breakout stretch Boone has been waiting for remained absent.
Chisholm said the slump has not changed how he views himself. With the Yankees opening a road series in Toronto on Friday, he pointed to the remaining schedule.
“Forty-one good games can turn a season around. And that’s what I’m planning on doing,” Chisholm said. “I feel like mentally, I’m not defeated. So if I was mentally defeated, I think it would have been a different story in my eyes, but I’m not. I feel like I’m still as good as I am.”
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