Jazz Chisholm Jr. gave the Yankees their best offensive moment of Monday night’s loss, but it was his defense that played a bigger role in the game’s result.
Chisholm made a pair of defensive miscues during the Yankees’ 4-2 loss to Kansas City, canceling out a ninth-inning solo home run that served as a consolation prize for a team that struggled all night at the plate.
The first of those came in the four-run fourth inning that flipped the momentum in the game.
With Tommy Pham on second and one out, Chisholm was in the wrong spot to cut off Alex Verdugo’s throw from left field after Garrett Hampson singled.
As a result, there was no play at the plate on Pham and Hampson easily took second, later coming in to score on Maikel Garcia’s base hit.
Chisholm’s error one inning later was less costly on the scoreboard, though unlike the earlier mistake, it was actually scored an error as he misfired on a throw from third to first, allowing Yuli Gurriel to reach safely.
Ironically, the Yankees were bailed out of that jam by another positional convert when Jon Berti made an excellent grab at first base on M.J. Melendez’s line drive for an unassisted double play.
Still, it is cause for concern if Chisholm, who had never played third before coming to New York — the Marlins mostly used him as a center fielder, with some time at second base and shortstop mixed in — is having issues.
During 400 ¹/₃ innings at the position in the regular season, Chisholm made seven errors — four of which were throwing errors — but graded out passably according to advanced metrics.
According to FanGraphs, he had six outs above average and negative-two defensive runs saved.
That is not winning any Gold Gloves, but for a player learning a new position on the fly, it was something everyone could be satisfied with, particularly given offensive Chisholm’s production.
The postseason, however, demands a different level of spotlight and scrutiny, one in which a mistake cannot be hand-waved on account of it being one out of 162 games.
Between his home run on Monday and his game-changing stolen base in Game 1 of the series, Chisholm has provided more than enough offensively.
On a night where Aaron Judge and Juan Soto combined for two walks and one infield single and the Yankees did not put a runner in scoring position after the third inning, Chisholm might have been their best hitter merely by dint of homering.
But the Yankees are going to need more than just Chisholm’s bat this October.
