All Jazzed Up: Yankees Acquire Chisholm Amid Winning Big Series Over Red Sox

The Yankees certainly made some progress in righting their listing ship as their offense came to life in a big way in taking two of three from the Red Sox, and Brian Cashman made the first of what should be several moves before Tuesday’s trade deadline by acquiring Jazz Chisholm from the Marlins. It was quite a weekend in Boston, so lets get to it.

The trade deadline is Tuesday afternoon, and the Yankees are going to need to make a whole lot more noise than they have so far if they hope to get this mess turned around and make a push for the postseason.

The combination of winning this crazy series at Fenway Park while scoring 26 runs in the process, and acquiring Jazz Chisholm on Saturday was definitely a start, and because of Baltimore’s mysterious slump, the 62-45 Yankees are now just a game back in the AL East.

“We know where we’ve been the last month and a half,” said Alex Verdugo who made his second visit back to Boston since being traded to the Yankees and did some damage all three nights. “It just starts like this, and you just keep on trusting each other, keep on going. Get a couple of guys at the trade deadline that are going to freshen it up in here, and we’re excited, man. We’re happy with the team we’ve got, and we know we can do some special things.”

Chisholm is the first addition, though the Yankees sent away three prospects to get him, the most notable being catcher Agustin Ramirez who was having a great season split between Double-A and Triple-A. Chisholm is a player I wasn’t all that - sorry for the pun - jazzed up about. Look, is there some potential upside with the 27-year-old who can play second base and the outfield? Sure, especially since he has two more years of contract control after this.

But what the Yankees really need is someone who can play third base. Aaron Boone said they’re going to try him there, so if he can handle it while helping the offense, then this move would look much better to me because it would get DJ LeMahieu out of the lineup, and return to Oswaldo Cabrera to where he belongs, as a versatile bench player.

Chisholm can steal bases as he had 22 for the Marlins, including eight in July which is as many as the Yankees have had as an entire team since June 13! He’s got a little pop in his bat with 66 home runs in 403 career MLB games for a decent .749 OPS dating back to 2020, but he’s a career .246 hitter with a poor .309 on-base percentage because he doesn’t walk very much.

And another big issue with him - which will enable him to fit right in with the Yankees - is that he has been injury prone. He played just 60 games in 2022 and 97 in 2023, though this year he has been healthy and he played in game No. 102 in his Yankees debut Sunday night.

Oh, and then there was this. In the spring, The Athletic compiled its annual players’ poll with all of the respondents granted anonymity in exchange for their candor. In the category of most overrated player, Chisholm was the runaway winner garnering 20.9% of the votes. The next highest total was 10.2% for always injured Angels third baseman Anthony Rendon, followed by 6.7% for Twins shortstop Carlos Correa.

That’s worrisome, and it’s also well known that Chisholm wasn’t the most popular guy in the Marlins clubhouse. He publicly called out former Marlins captain Miguel Rojas earlier this year for being a terrible leader and a bad person. It’ll be very interesting to see how he assimilates to the veteran-laden Yankees clubhouse, and the hope is that captain Aaron Judge will guide him properly through the process.

Yankees hitting coach James Rowson worked for the Marlins before coming to New York and he had a favorable reaction to the acquisition. “Super talented,” Rowson told reporters Saturday. “You watch him and see what he can do on the field. This guy’s got many tools and his tools play in so many different ways. Anything that helps us, anything our group feels helps us, I’m in on.”

Of his personality, Rowson said it was, “Electric. I like Jazz. I’ve spent a lot of time with Jazz, three years in Miami, so I’ve known him for a long time. I enjoy him. He’s a really talented dude.”

Chisholm played center field Sunday which was good because it got Trent Grisham out of the lineup. And yes, Grisham was one of the heroes in the win Saturday, but come on, we’ve seen enough of him, haven’t we? His other primary position is second base, so maybe he’ll platoon with Gleyber Torres, though over the past three weeks or so, Torres has been one of the Yankees best hitters.

As I said, there’s upside, and if the Yankees need anything these days, it’s players with upside so here’s hoping Chisholm provides that, and then Cashman finds a few others before Tuesday to do it, too.

July 26: Red Sox 9, Yankees 7

The Lead: Another appalling loss

Before acquiring Chisholm, and then winning the final two games of the season, there was this debacle on Friday. At this point, if I were to compile a list of the 10 worst losses of the season, I’d really have to work hard to limit it to just 10. Clearly, this one would make the list.

In the bottom of the seventh, right after Luke Weaver gave up a two-run bomb to Ceddanne Rafaela which cut the Yankees lead to 7-6, I tweeted that I had no doubt the bullpen was going to blow this game. Of course I was right, but it’s not like I’m Nostradamus, right? I’m sure many of you knew this, too. That was about the easiest prediction I could have made.

After Judge hit a mammoth 470-foot homer and Austin Wells followed with a solo shot for a 7-4 lead in the seventh, that should have been the impetus for victory. Instead, the bullpen - Weaver and the completely unreliable Clay Holmes in this case - imploded and snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

“It just gave us a lead,” Judge said of his ultimately meaningless homer. “Especially in this park, no lead’s really safe.”

Newsflash Aaron: Unless Judge can find ways to hit eight-run homers, it doesn’t matter what he does with this Yankees pitching staff. No lead is safe, and almost no amount of runs are enough regardless of the park for the Yankees, but especially at Fenway.

Game notes and observations:

➤ Nestor Cortes was once again terrible on the road. He lasted 4.2 innings, and that was only because the Red Sox were nearly as bad with runners in scoring position as the Yankees usually are. They had nine hits, two walks and a hit by pitch against him, but they were 2-for-9 with RISP while he was out there so they “only” scored four runs. It could have been a blowout very early, so I guess I’ll give him a little credit, but the bottom line is there were 12 baserunners in less than five innings. That’s a WHIP of more than two which, as you know, would get a young guy shipped back to the minors.

➤ Handed a three-run lead, Weaver pissed it away with the help of the completely unreliable Holmes. Tim Hill, who only started the inning because lefty leadoff man Masataka Yoshida was up, walked him. Then Weaver came into an already dirty inning, and he promptly threw a center cut nothing pitch to Rafaela who whacked it way over the Green Monster, already that kid’s fifth homer against the Yankees in 11 career games so yeah, another Yankee killer has emerged.

➤ In the eighth, Weaver gave up a single and a walk, amazingly got Rafael Devers out which was nothing short of a miracle, and then exited as Boone asked Holmes for a five-out save. To the surprise of no one, that did not happen. Wilyer Abreu tied it with a single and Yoshida ripped a two-run single for the winning runs. It took Holmes five pitches to lose the game.

➤ Weaver has had a very nice season, but like the rest of the Yankees not named Judge and Juan Soto, it’s starting to go sideways for him. He’s been mostly lousy in his last seven appearances - a 5.00 ERA with seven hits and six walks across nine innings. He’s considered a high leverage guy for the Yankees because the rest of the bullpen is so bad, but he is starting to look like the journeyman pitcher he’d been before this season.

➤ Offensively, it was a good night, but it was all for naught. The Yankees finally showed a little life as they had seven runs on 14 hits and three walks and yet still found a way to lose because they are such a soft, lifeless team. They hit three home runs - Anthony Volpe also had one - and it didn’t even matter.

July 27: Yankees 11, Red Sox 8

The Lead: An equally appalling Red Sox loss

The Red Sox taketh away on Friday night, and they giveth away on Saturday night. It was a complete reversal of fortune for the two old rivals during a wild, three-hour, 38-minute marathon as the Red Sox allowed a stunning run in the ninth which tied the game, as unlikely a run as the Yankees have scored all year as it was generated by Ben Rice who was in a 4-for-52 slump, and light-hitting Grisham.

If Friday lengthened the list of worst losses of the year, this game jumped way up on the much shorter list of best wins of the season as the Yankees snapped a three-game losing streak. In fact, given that the Yankees were one strike away from defeat before Grisham doubled off the Green Monster to send home pinch runner Jahmai Jones with the tying run, I guess we can argue this might have been their best victory, especially when you factor in the dire straits the Yankees have been in for closing in on two months.

“We’re fighting for our lives right now,” Boone said. “Tonight got turned upside down pretty early and you’re trying to piece it together. A number of guys in the pen stepped up, a couple guys struggled, but everyone just kept picking it up. That room is playing for a lot, you can feel it. Nothing’s been easy, of course. We know we got to keep getting better and moving the needle and racking up wins. But we’re fighting for a lot and it’s fun to see these guys laying it on the line.”

Game notes and observations:

➤ Make no mistake, it was a great win, but while the Yankees offense was red hot with 16 hits and five walks, there was still plenty of bad baseball. They went just 5-for-19 with runners in scoring position and despite 11 runs, still left 11 men on base; there were four different innings where the Yankees scored but their pitchers went on to allow runs in the bottom half; Volpe made an error that led to two second-inning runs; in that same inning Grisham missed a cutoff man making a foolish throw home that had no chance, and the batter, Jarren Duran took second and later scored from there on a single; Torres mistimed a leap that turned an out into a double; and Soto made an awful out on the bases, running through a stop sign at third with one out and getting gunned down by a mile which probably cost them the tying run in the eighth. Yeah, not exactly artistic, this game.

➤ You knew this game was drunk from the very start. The Yankees led 3-0 before Red Sox starter Kutter Crawford recorded an out as Verdugo led off with a walk, and then Soto and Judge hit back-to-back homers. And then in the bottom half, Marcus Stroman began a regrettably terrible start by giving it right back as Boston beat him up for three runs on four straight hits. Stroman lasted just 3.1 innings and gave up five runs (three earned) on nine hits and a walk with zero strikeouts. Simply awful.

➤ Cabrera homered in the second, but Stroman gave up two runs on three more hits plus an error by Volpe in the bottom half. It could have been worse but Rafaela gave the Yankees a free out on a play that must have driven Alex Cora nuts. After a flyout, as the Yankees were getting the ball back into the infield, for some reason Rafaela was standing three feet off third base talking to his coach, and Torres threw to Cabrera who tagged him out. It was bizarre, and it cost the Red Sox a run. It happened after the dumb Grisham throw home so the Sox had men on second and third, but with Rafaela gone, Yoshida’s single right after plated just one run.

➤ Judge, who was on base all six times he batted - two walks, two singles, a homer and a double with three runs scored and three RBI - tied it at 5-5 with an RBI single in the fifth following a Verdugo double, but Jake Cousins came in and served up a solo homer to Tyler O’Neill. The Yankees tied it again in the seventh on two walks and a sac fly by Rice, but Michael Tonkin - who seems to be regressing back to who he really is - was worse than Stroman in the seventh. He faced six men and recorded one out in allowing two runs, one on O’Neill’s second homer and the other on a double by David Hamilton.

➤ But for once the Yankees showed some fortitude and they scored the final five runs. Judge had an RBI double in the eighth, Grisham tied it in the ninth, and in the 10th, Cabrera started as the free man at second, took third on a Soto single and after Judge walked, he scored on Wells’ sac fly. Torres then came up with a huge two-run double and that gave Holmes some breathing room. And, shocker of shockers on a night full of them, Holmes was actually very good. He pitched a 1-2-3 ninth and closed it out without allowing a run in the 10th.

July 28: Yankees 8, Red Sox 2

The Lead: Carlos Rodon didn’t get killed

I was worried about this one because every time Rodon pitches, there’s reason to worry, right? And given that he allowed five runs in the first two innings when he pitched at Fenway on June 15 - the very night that began the Yankees’ six-weeks-long plunge into darkness - I sure wasn’t expecting to see what eventually happened.

Rodon, with the exception of a three-batter sequence in the fourth inning when he gave up two home runs and a triple in the span of nine pitches, was very good. He pitched 6.1 innings and gave up just two runs on five hits and a walk with seven strikeouts as he induced a whopping 25 swings and misses, the third-highest total of his career as he relied heavily on an effective changeup, something new for him.

“Getting an out into the seventh there, we needed that,” Boone said, meaning the bullpen was taxed after the first two games. “It was just a big performance following up a strong one obviously his last time (against Tampa Bay). It’s a gritty series win. We’re not all the way where we want to be right now, of course, but there’s a lot of fight in there. It’s been really good to see the offense string together a bunch of games where they’re making it real heavy on the opposition.”

Game notes and observations:

➤ All eyes were on Chisholm and let’s face it, things did not start well for him. He played center field and batted fifth, and in his first four at bats, he struck out with men on second and third in the first inning, then grounded out to the first baseman three straight times, leaving three men on base. Finally in the ninth inning with the game decided, he showed what he can do. He beat out an infield single with his speed, took second on a groundout, then stole third and that enabled him to score on LeMahieu’s fly ball to right. That sequence, that manufactured run, is exactly what the Yankees need in their lineup, someone on base and creating trouble for the defense.

➤ As they did Saturday, the Yankees jumped out to a 3-0 lead only this time they did it against the Red Sox ace, Tanner Houck, who just didn’t have it. Verdugo led off with a double and scored on a Judge single, then Wells doubled and after Chisholm whiffed, Torres picked him up with a big two-run single. Unlike Stroman on Saturday, Rodon shut the door in the bottom half as well as the next two innings.

➤ His only trouble came in the fourth. After the Yankees made it 4-0 on Rice’s sac fly, Rodon gave up back-to-back homers to Rob Refsnyder and Connor Wong, then a triple to Devers who hit one off the Monster and when Chisholm misplayed the carom and let it bounce past him, and Soto didn’t back him up, Devers wound up on third. However, he remained there as Rodon mowed down the next three men to keep at 4-2 and that felt like the key moment in the game.

➤ A Wells sac fly in the seventh off ex-Yankee Greg Weissert made it 5-2, and then Cabrera came up with a huge two-run double in the eighth to put it away.

➤ What a series this was for Judge as he was on base 11 times in his 16 plate appearances, raising his on-base percentage to .446. The only other Yankee to get on base at least 11 times while driving in seven runs in a three-game series against the Red Sox was Lou Gehrig in 1929.

➤ Verdugo also had a nig weekend as he went 7-for-15 with three doubles and five runs scored. Torres, now playing with Chisholm who will probably take his second base job next year, went 5-for-14 with two doubles and four RBI. And Cabrera, who figures to lose playing time to Chisholm, went 4-for-13 with a double, a homer, three runs and three RBI as he started all three games ahead of LeMahieu at third.

From one brutally tough series to another as the Yankees head down to Philadelphia for three against the runaway NL East-leading, star-studded Phillies who at 65-40 have the best record in MLB and lead the Braves in the East by 8.5 games.

They’ve hit a little rough patch and have lost eight of their last 12 games including two of three to the AL Central-leading Guardians over the weekend. Sunday they blew a 3-0 lead after three innings and never scored again as Cleveland went on to a 4-3 victory, and afterward, superstar Bryce Harper said, “Yeah, the superstars got to show up.” It was a direct shot at himself and other players like Trea Turner, JT Realmuto, Nick Castellanos, Alec Bohm, Kyle Schwarber, Aaron Nola and Zack Wheeler who need to get the team back on track.

“It just hasn’t been good,” Harper said. “Obviously, myself, I haven’t been good at all. We’ve just got to get better, turn the page and try to have a better series against the Yankees. It’s just part of the game. As the season goes, you’re going to have your ups and downs, obviously. We’ve had chances to win games. We’ve had leads in games. We haven’t been able to get the job done.”

As for the pitching matchups, it’s not great because the Yankees are seeing both Nola and Wheeler, though they will miss Ranger Suarez. On Monday at 6:40 on Amazon Prime it’s Luis Gil (3.10 ERA) against Wheeler (2.55); Tuesday at 6:40 on YES it’s Gerrit Cole (5.40) against Nola (3.44); and Wednesday at 12:35 on YES it’s Nestor Cortes (4.13) against Christopher Sanchez (3.05).