NEW YORK — The Yankees won on Tuesday night, and Jazz Chisholm still could not get out of his own way.
In the seventh inning against the Seattle Mariners, Chisholm challenged an out call at first base and won the review. He was safe. Seconds later he drifted too far off the bag, got caught in a lazy rundown and was tagged out. He had argued his way onto the bases, then handed the out right back.
The blunder did not cost the Yankees anything on the scoreboard. New York led by three at the time and beat Seattle 4-1, powered by a four-run seventh inning built on RBI singles from Ryan McMahon and Trent Grisham. Chisholm finished with a hit and a run scored.
But the baserunning gaffe landed at the worst possible moment for the second baseman. It arrived the same week a prominent insider argued that Chisholm has played his way out of the everyday lineup, and the same stretch in which his bat has gone quiet. What looked like a harmless moment in a win is now part of a larger question hanging over the Yankees roster.
The numbers behind Yankees frustration
Chisholm entered Tuesday hitting .216, his lowest mark since his rookie season with the Miami Marlins in 2020. His full line after the game sits at .217/.297/.395 with 17 home runs, 47 RBIs and 31 stolen bases. The power and speed still show up. The contact does not.
The 28-year-old has struck out 135 times in 435 plate appearances, a 31 percent rate. His .692 OPS is well below where the Yankees need it from a middle-of-the-order bat. For a former All-Star, it adds up to a career-worst season in a Yankees uniform.
The recent stretch is worse than the season line. Over his last 15 games, Chisholm has eight hits in 53 at-bats with 23 strikeouts, one home run and seven walks. Across his last 30 games he is batting .202 with a .590 OPS.
The timing matters because the Yankees are already shorthanded. Cody Bellinger, Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton have all missed time, leaving fewer established bats to carry the lineup. Every empty at-bat from a regular is magnified.
Chisholm speaks on the struggles
Chisholm has not hidden from the slump. He has openly acknowledged that this season has not gone the way he expected, and he pointed to one at-bat in particular as a low point. A four-pitch strikeout in the ninth inning of a 1-1 game against Atlanta on Sunday stung him.
Speaking to reporters about that at-bat, Chisholm did not soften it.
“It’s super frustrating, especially when it’s such a close game and going into extras. It just sucks.”
He also described the gap between his work behind the scenes and the results in games. He framed it as a problem of execution, not effort, and vowed to keep grinding through it.
“It’s super frustrating when you know your abilities and you go out there and you go in the cage and work every day, and it’s just not coming together in the game,” Chisholm said, via the New York Daily News. “You just gotta keep on going and push through it.”
Pressure on Yankees to bench Chisholm
The scrutiny intensified this week when New York Post columnist Joel Sherman argued that Chisholm and Grisham should lose their everyday jobs. Sherman tied the team’s monthlong offensive slide, which dates to late June, directly to the two veterans and questioned whether either belongs in the lineup once the injured stars return.
Sherman wrote that the pair had, in his words, “cratered in what is now a seven-plus-week offensive malaise.” He also suggested the Yankees could lean on better defenders if the bats do not come around.
“Grisham and Chisholm have lost the right to be in the lineup every day,” Sherman wrote. He added that José Caballero is a better second baseman than the current version of Chisholm.
Sherman also labeled Chisholm as distracted, a criticism that fits the pattern of mental lapses like the Tuesday pickoff. Manager Aaron Boone now faces a choice between loyalty to a proven player and the case for run prevention.
What it means for the Yankees down the stretch
None of this has knocked the Yankees off course in the standings. Tuesday’s win pushed them to 67-52. They sit second in the AL East, six games behind the Tampa Bay Rays, and hold a comfortable lead in the AL wild-card race. A third straight postseason trip looks likely.
The margin for sloppy baseball shrinks from here. Baserunning mistakes and empty at-bats that get absorbed in August can decide games in September and October. That is the real stakes behind the pickoff, not one lost out in a game the Yankees had already controlled.
Chisholm’s tools have never been the question. A player who can approach 25 home runs and 30 steals changes games when he is right. The Yankees still need that version, and they need it while Judge, Bellinger and Stanton work back to full strength.
For now, Chisholm remains in the Yankees lineup, still the starting second baseman, still insisting he will push through it. Whether that patience holds may come down to the next few weeks, with the Yankees watching every at-bat and every step off the bag.
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