NEW YORK — The Yankees spent Friday night improvising around the infield and, for the moment, getting away with it.
Amed Rosario started at third base against Toronto’s left-handed opener. Jose Caballero opened at second. Jazz Chisholm Jr. was on the bench. Then Rosario walked in the first inning, Chisholm pinch-ran for him and the defensive alignment had to change before the second inning even began.
The Yankees did not put Chisholm on the left side. They moved Caballero to third and sent Chisholm to second, where he has spent virtually his entire season. The alignment held through a 3-1 win over the Blue Jays that pushed New York’s winning streak to five games.
Spencer Jones supplied the decisive swing with a two-run homer in the second. Cam Schlittler allowed one run over six innings to improve to 11-6, and David Bednar earned his 30th save. Spencer Arrighetti took the loss for Toronto. The Yankees improved to 73-55 and moved within three games of Tampa Bay in the AL East.
The result made the patchwork look painless. The roster question underneath it is not.
New York has spent most of the season trying to create defensive stability around Chisholm, not move him around. His bat has been uneven, but the Yankees have treated second base as his home. Friday offered an immediate test of whether that commitment would survive another injury elsewhere on the diamond.
The choice matters because Chisholm is no longer just filling second base. He has spent five months building daily repetition there while the Yankees have rotated other pieces around him. Even through an uneven offensive season, the club has resisted turning his versatility into another round of position changes. Friday’s first-inning shuffle showed how quickly that philosophy can be tested when the roster loses one more regular.
That is the decision Ryan McMahon’s left thumb has now forced onto Aaron Boone.
McMahon’s IL move reopens a position Yankees thought was settled
The Yankees placed McMahon on the 10-day injured list Friday, retroactive to Aug. 20, after further imaging showed a Grade 2 sprain of his left thumb. He jammed the thumb Wednesday in Baltimore while trying to stretch an RBI single into a double.
Initial X-rays were negative, but swelling increased and McMahon eventually could not grip the bat well enough to continue. The Yankees recalled utilityman Max Schuemann from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre to take the roster spot.
The Yankees’ official announcement made the move straightforward.
“Placed INF Ryan McMahon on the 10-day injured list (retroactive to 8/20) with a left thumb sprain.”
The replacement plan is less straightforward. Schuemann can move around the diamond. Rosario has experience at third. Caballero can play there, too. Chisholm, however, is the one Yankee with the most substantial recent experience at the position.
He played 45 games at third after joining the Yankees in 2024 and another 29 there in 2025. Yet he has not appeared at third base this season. New York has kept him at second, a position that better fits both his history and the club’s preferred alignment.
Friday gave Yankees a clue about Boone’s first instinct
The first inning against Toronto created a live version of the choice Boone now faces.
Rosario started at third because the Blue Jays opened with left-hander Mason Fluharty. After Rosario walked, Jazz Chisholm Jr. entered as a pinch-runner. When the Yankees took the field in the second, Boone could have sent Chisholm to third and left Caballero at second.
He did the opposite.
Chisholm went to second. Caballero crossed the diamond to third. The Yankees turned two double plays with that arrangement and protected a two-run lead for most of the night.
That does not lock in the plan while McMahon is out, especially against different pitching matchups. It does show how reluctant the Yankees may be to disturb Chisholm’s work at second when they have other third-base options.
Chisholm’s defensive improvement makes move harder than it looks
Chisholm’s fielding logs show why moving him back to third is not a free solution.
Through Friday, Chisholm had made six errors in 106 starts at second base this season. That works out to about 5.7 errors per 100 starts. In 2025, he committed 12 errors in 97 starts at second, or about 12.4 per 100 starts.
That is a 54% reduction in errors per start from last season. Error totals do not capture every part of defense, but the change helps illustrate the stability the Yankees would be giving up by shifting him again.
There is also the simple matter of repetition. Chisholm has made 106 starts at second this season and none at third. The last time the Yankees asked him to handle the hot corner regularly was 2025.
His history says he can do it. The current season says the Yankees have spent five months building something else.
Offensive side makes Boone’s choice even less comfortable
Chisholm’s offensive production complicates the roster math in a different way.
After going 0-for-3 Friday, he was hitting .214 with 17 home runs, 49 RBIs and 33 stolen bases. His .680 OPS is well below his .813 mark from 2025, and he has spent much of August trying to regain consistency.
The Yankees could use Rosario at third against left-handed pitching and Caballero there in other matchups. Schuemann provides another right-handed option. That would allow Chisholm to remain at second without asking a struggling hitter to absorb another defensive change at the same time.
The tradeoff is offense. McMahon gave the Yankees another left-handed bat, and his absence makes it harder to remove Chisholm from the lineup simply because Rosario or Caballero offers a cleaner matchup. Cody Bellinger’s expected return could ease that pressure, but it does not solve the infield alignment by itself.
McMahon is eligible to return Aug. 30 if he misses only the minimum 10 days. Until then, the Yankees must decide whether third base is a hole large enough to move Chisholm out of the position where they finally appear to have settled him.
Friday’s answer was no. Chisholm stayed at second, Caballero moved to third and the Yankees won again. Boone now has at least a week to decide whether that was a one-night adjustment or the blueprint.
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