From Bryan Hoch:
There is no replacing Aaron Judge’s presence in the Yankees’ lineup. Jazz Chisholm Jr. carried the next best thing to home plate: his bat.
After Cody Bellinger launched a tiebreaking home run, Chisholm followed by borrowing the captain’s lumber, cracking a three-run homer in a big eighth inning that powered the Yankees’ 6-1 victory over the Red Sox on Sunday at Yankee Stadium.
“When I pick up his bat, I know I can’t swing as hard as I can,” Chisholm said. “I feel like it just helps me to go out there and control the barrel and just try to touch the ball instead of trying to hit it so hard.”
Putting the finishing touches on a five-run frame, it was at least the third time Chisholm has rifled through the rack in search of Judge’s 35-inch, 33-ounce bat, a weightier choice than the 34-inch, 31-ounce models Chisholm orders for himself.
Using one of Judge’s bats, Chisholm homered in his second game as a Yankee on July 29, 2024, at Philadelphia, going deep off a position player. He stroked an extra-base hit using one last April against the Orioles, but whipped it so hard that he injured his right oblique.
After striking out in each of his first three at-bats against left-hander Ranger Suarez, the equipment swap was exactly what he needed.
“I was swinging and missing when I thought I was hitting the ball, so I was just seeing if the bat would change that,” Chisholm said. “Sometimes you need a little bit more weight and a little bit less in your swing.”
It’s a cute story, but Hoch, dude, how is THAT your headline story? That Jazz hit a home run after the Yankees had already taken a 3-1 lead in the bottom of the 8th inning? The game of the story was definitely Bellinger breaking a tie in the bottom of the 8th inning with a two-out home run. Then the Yankees scored four MORE runs on top of that.
Cam Schlittler calmed a lot of people down by increasing his velocity a lot in this game, and he looked to be back to normal. The bullpen was excellent.
The big issues were twofold. One, they have to hit better, of course. You can’t just get curbstomped by a good lefty like Suarez. Secondly, Anthony Volpe made an awful throw home that SHOULD have had at least a very good chance of nailing Raffaela trying to score from first base, but he just airmailed it. When you have a very good shortstop NOT playing short so that VOLPE can play short, it makes you really think, “Hmmm…”
The Yankees bench is currently:
Either Volpe or Cabby
Sanchez
Rosario
Schuemann
With Jones nominally the starter in right field.
Okay, so when Dominguez returns, Dominguez obviously becomes the right fielder, so it would make some sense to just send Jones down. But let’s say Jones has a good couple of games until Dominguez returns. Doesn’t it make some sense at that point to just send Volpe down? Schumann has much more positional versatility than Volpe. He can play left field, right field, shortstop, third base, second base and presumably first base (not that they would ever need…or WANT him to play first base, as they have three first basemen on the team). Volpe can only play shortstop, which is the position Caballero plays normally.
A lineup of…
Grisham CF
Rice DH
Bellinger LF
Goldschmidt 1B
Jazz 2B
Dominguez CF
McMahon 3B
Caballero SS
Escarra C
with Spencer Jones to pinch hit late for Escarra against a righty, and Rosario to pinch hit for Escarra against a lefty (or for McMahon against lefty)? That sounds pretty good to me, and you probably improve your shortstop defense.
But I bet they’ll just send Jones down.
Featured image is Belli about to touch home on his go-ahead home run.
About the Author
Did Sterling ever do “back to back and belly to belly for Belli”?
I doubt it but when he covered the Japanese Sumo championship he did a lot of belly to belly.
If Clay and Cody had homered together, it would be a different call… but you couldn’t hear the difference.
you can be sure that he would have underlined his clever joke repeatedly
I can say with about 90% certainty that he did not, in fact, use that obvious joke when it happened. I looked for it at the time for the same reason, I thought it would have been cool.
I liked this
https://www.mlb.com/news/kevin-mcgonigle-homer-young-fan-mcgonigoggles
I am having trouble figuring out why Volpe is on the roster and not at AAA. Lil help?
sunk cost fallacy
I’ll feel pretty stupid if he starts to perform, but he just hasn’t shown enough — even down there — to make me worried about it. Having Caballero in the OF is ridiculous, they have a glut of outfielders. I know Trent is hitting lately, but I didn’t even want him back.
I think they think having another righty bat in the lineup is useful. I believe that they are mistaken. Just send Volpe to the minors, and play Cabby every day at shortstop. Jones against a lefty simply HAS to be better than Volpe against a lefty at this point.
I don’t think Volpe is USELESS, but so long as Cabby has a plus .700 OPS (or even in the vicinity of .700 OPS, like .690-ish), just fucking play Cabby.
But we shall see what happens when Dominguez is called up. They might surprise us by actually making the cutthroat move. They already sent Volpe down to the minors once, ya know?
Sending the guy with an .864 OPS who plays five different positions well to keep Volpe so that their stud defensive shortstop doesn’t play everyday seems so ill-sighted.
Plus, not for nothing, if you send Volpe down for another month, you also gain an extra year of control over him. That’s not necessarily a GOOD thing at this point, but who knows?
Hey, the man’s out-hitting Manny F*ing Machado!
Grisham, by the way, is up to a .736 OPS. With how badly his season started, that’s pretty damn good.
it’s true that he has been much better (even with some foibles in the field) but they have outfielders. Even if some are gimpy right now.