Yankees Jazz It Up, Even Their Series With Red Sox

NEW YORK — Jazz Chisholm Jr. was not a happy camper on Tuesday night. Despite a 31-homer, 31-steal season that included a solid showing against left-handed pitching, he spent the first seven innings of the Wild Card Series opener against the Red Sox on the bench instead of facing lefty Garrett Crochet. After the Yankees’ 3-1 loss, he was left muttering almost inaudibly at his locker with his back to reporters — a surreal scene. Back in the lineup on Wednesday night against righty Brayan Bello, Chisholm went 0-for-3 but made huge contributions on both sides of the ball, with two standout defensive plays and an eighth-inning walk that turned into the decisive run when he motored home from first base on Austin Wells’ long go-ahead single. The Yankees’ 4-3 win kept their season alive, pushing the series to Game 3.

Despite hitting a respectable .248/.322/.411 (106 wRC+) against lefties this year (compared to .240/.336/.508, 134 wRC+ against righties), Chisholm sat on Tuesday night in favor of righty Amed Rosario — who played just one game at second base after being acquired from the Nationals on July 26 — apparently on the basis of Rosario’s owning a 6-for-9 career line with two extra-base hits against Crochet entering play Tuesday. Rosario went hitless in three plate appearances against the Boston ace before yielding to Chisholm in the eighth inning; Chisholm flied out with the bases loaded in the ninth against Aroldis Chapman.

Manager Aaron Boone wasn’t worried that Chisholm’s disappointment at being left out of the lineup would carry over into Game 2. “I don’t need him to put a happy face on,” Boone said Wednesday afternoon. “I need him to go out and play his butt off for us tonight. That’s what I expect to happen.”

Chisholm, who lived up to that expectation, assured the media that while he and Boone sometimes had disagreements — including over his being slotted at third base for a chunk of this season — he didn’t have a problem with the manager, saying, “I always stand with Booney because he always understands where I come from. He knows I am a passionate player. He knows I wear my feelings on my sleeve. He knows I am there to compete.”

As for how he got over his disappointment, “I played MLB: The Show and mercy-ruled someone. That’s how I get my stress off,” laughed Chisholm.

The Yankees jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first inning against Bello thanks to a two-out single by Cody Bellinger, followed by a two-run homer by first baseman Ben Rice, who despite closing the season on a 10-for-23 tear with three home runs — two on the season’s final day against the Orioles — also sat on Tuesday night in favor of righty Paul Goldschmidt. “I know my role, and yesterday my role was to be ready for a big at-bat off the bench, and today I was starting,” said Rice. “The approach doesn’t change.”

Facing a lineup that featured seven righties, Yankees starter Carlos Rodón retired the first six hitters he faced, three by strikeout; he got six whiffs between his slider and changeup in that span. He found trouble in the third, when Jarren Duran, the lineup’s lone lefty, led off with a sharp single and Ceddanne Rafaela worked a walk. Switch-hitter Nick Sogard, one of Tuesday night’s heroes, bunted back to Rodón, who rushed his throw to first; it bounced, forcing Chisholm, who was covering first, to pull his left foot off the base too early, an error.

With the bases loaded, nobody out, and the lineup turned over, Rodón struck out Rob Refsnyder chasing at a low changeup, but his slider to Trevor Story caught too much of the plate, and Story dumped it into center field for a two-run single, tying the game. Rodón avoided even worse trouble when he induced Alex Bregman to ground into a 4-6-3 double play, with Chisholm spinning and making an awkward but on-target throw to Volpe for the pivot — a play that not only limited the damage but roused the Yankee Stadium crowd in the wake of their team’s sustaining a gut punch.

After riding Crochet for 7 2/3 brilliant innings on Tuesday, Boston manager Alex Cora gave Bello a quick hook in the third. Ryan McMahon led off with a single, was erased in favor of Trent Grisham on a force out, and then Aaron Judge followed with a single. To that point, Bello had retired just six of 11 batters faced, getting just three whiffs from among his 28 pitches. “The at-bats were getting better with the lefties, and we had a bunch of [lefties] in the bullpen,” said Cora. “Felt like at that point kind of like we have to do this. It doesn’t feel good, because you want the kid to go out there and get his experience and pitch deep into the game.”

Indeed, the Yankees stacked their lineup with six lefties, so it rated as a bit of a surprise when Cora called upon lefty Justin Wilson to face Bellinger, who hit .353/.415/.601 (180 wRC+) against southpaws this season and therefore was probably the one Yankee lefty who wouldn’t give same-handed pitchers a platoon advantage. On Wilson’s second pitch, Grisham stole third, with catcher Carlos Narváez dropping the ball, allowing Judge to take second. Bellinger lofted a fly ball to left, but it was too shallow to score Grisham, and Rice flied out as well, ending the threat.

The Yankees took the lead in the bottom of the fifth when Grisham drew a two-out walk against righty Justin Slaten, advanced to second on a passed ball, and scored when Judge hit a soft liner to left field; Duran, diving, dropped the ball, a tough enough play that the scorer ruled it a hit.

That Yankees lead proved even more short-lived than their previous one. Rodón fell behind Story 2-0, and then served him a 95.2-mph meatball, which the shortstop crushed for a 381-foot solo shot to left. Rodón then walked Bregman on four pitches, prompting a mound visit from Boone. “When I saw him cross the line and he didn’t put his arm up, I knew I had a chance at a rebuttal,” said Rodón, who remained in the game. He induced Romy Gonzalez to pop out, then got Narváez to ground into a first-pitch, around-the-horn double play.

With light-hitting righty Nate Eaton and then the lefty Duran due up to start the seventh, Boone sent Rodón, whose pitch count was still just at 82, back to the mound. The move backfired when Rodón walked Eaton on four pitches, threw a wild pitch to send him to second, then fell behind Duran 3-0 before grazing him with a pitch. Boone called upon Fernando Cruz, who allowed just two out of 27 inherited runners to score during the regular season. He began his outing by catching a bunt off the bat of Rafaela, then retired Sogard on a fly ball. Cora pulled the righty-swinging Refsnyder in favor of lefty Masataka Yoshida, who hit a scorching groundball to the right of second base. Chisholm dove and made an outstanding backhanded stop, followed by an off-balance two-bounce throw to first that dribbled away from Rice. Eaton nonetheless held up at third. The diving stop prevented what would’ve been the go-ahead run.

“It is a 3-2 count, runner on second base, runner on [first] base. They are moving. You see a groundball, you got to stop it,” Chisholm said. “You have to keep it in the infield. You have to stop that run from scoring… I caught the ball, I was like maybe I could make it at first base. At the end of the day, it is stopping that run from scoring.”

“I have no idea why he didn’t go,” said McMahon, the third baseman, of Eaton. “As soon as [Chisholm] dove, I started yelling ‘Four!’ because usually in that situation when a guy dives you keep running.”

The Yankees weren’t home free. With the bases now loaded, Story got ahead 2-1, then hit a towering fly ball — 102.3 mph off the bat, with a 31-degree launch angle — but to the fat part of the ballpark, where Grisham ran it down at the warning track. The ever-animated Cruz, who is listed at 6-foot-2 and 237 pounds, pounded his chest, pumped his fists, flexed, and did just about everything but turn into a cheerleading version of the Incredible Hulk.

After the Yankees squandered Grisham’s one-out double off Garrett Whitlock in the seventh, Devin Williams worked a scoreless eighth, punctuated by his starting the Yankees’ third double play of the night. Whitlock struck out Rice and got Giancarlo Stanton to ground out to start the eighth. Up came Chisholm, who to that point had flied out against Bello, popped out foul against Wilson, and struck out against Steven Matz (the Yankees’ first strikeout of the game, for the second out of the sixth). He worked a seven-pitch walk, with ball four coming on Whitlock’s 32nd pitch of what was already his longest outing since June 23. Chapman was looming in the bullpen, stretching but not yet throwing.

Whitlock stayed in to face Wells, who worked the count full, then pulled a low changeup down the right field line, the ball landing fair, just inches from chalk. Chisholm, who had run with the pitch a couple of times only for Wells to foul it off, had gotten a great jump and sped home as Eaton chased down the ball, which caromed off the wall in foul territory. Though Eaton made a very good on-line throw, Chisholm just beat the tag.

Watching the play spurred me to think back to the end of Rodón’s outing. Had Boone pulled his starter after he gave up the lead in the sixth, he likely would have gone with a righty reliever, which would have triggered Cora to pinch-hit with Wilyer Abreu, not only a better hitter against righties but the majors’ second-best right fielder in terms of both DRS (15) and FRV (8), with 97th-percentile arm strength to boot. Would he have made a better play on the ball than Eaton, or thrown home with just a little more mustard? We can’t know that, and given the Yankees’ bullpen troubles over the past two months (and in Game 1), Boone felt more comfortable riding Rodón and avoiding a less favorable batter-pitcher matchup. It worked out for him.

As it was, Boone called upon David Bednar for the ninth, a night after he surrendered a key insurance run. This time he was perfect, striking out the pinch-hitting Abreu and Duran, then inducing Rafaella to fly out to right.

With that, the series is even. Much has been made of the fact that since the current best-of-three format was introduced in 2022, all 12 teams that won Game 1 ended up winning the series, either in two or three games. That’s still a small sample, and when we expand the pool to include the best-of-three series from 2020, there’s at least a precedent for a team doing the not-exactly-impossible task of winning back-to-back elimination games to advance. The A’s lost Game 1 but still beat the White Sox to advance to the Division Series.

With Lucas Giolito — who coincidentally, along with Rodón and Crochet, was a member of those 2020 White Sox — left off the roster due to elbow trouble, Cora will call upon rookie lefty Connelly Early, who has just four major league starts under his belt. While the Red Sox used six relievers on Wednesday, only Whitlock threw more than 23 pitches. “They are in good shape,” Cora said of bullpen.

The Yankees will counter with a rookie of their own, righty Cam Schlittler, who didn’t debut until July 9. While Boone said he has yet to decide whether lefty killer Goldschmidt, who went 2-for-4 in Game 1, will start instead of Rice for what will in all likelihood be another short outing by an opposing starter, the manager has already declared that Chisholm will be in the lineup. After Wednesday night’s performance, with the season on the line, there’s clearly no need to improvise that decision.