Erik Boland: Jazz Chisholm Jr.'s resurgence offers hope for Yankees with Aaron Judge out
The Yankees’ Jazz Chisholm Jr. is greeted in the dugout after his two-run home run against the Pittsburgh Pirates during the third inning of an MLB game at Yankee Stadium on Monday. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
While watching his club stagger along during a 4-14 stretch from June 20-July 8, manager Aaron Boone often employed one of his go-to phrases.
No, not “it’s right there in front of us,” a phrase that, based on online reaction, most causes Yankees fans to test their creativity with expletives.
Rather, as the offense continued to struggle and losses mounted, Boone noted that ''a lot'' of his players were ''going through it.'' which means significantly slumping at the plate.
Those troubles became magnified more than they might have been otherwise because of the long-term absence of Aaron Judge, who has not played in a game since May 31 (and still isn’t all that close to returning).
Few players were “going through it” worse than Jazz Chisholm Jr., who may be showing signs of emerging from what the second baseman himself would acknowledge has been a lousy season.
Or, as he put it late Sunday night after his homer helped lead the Yankees to a 2-1 victory over the Dodgers: “I’ve sucked all season. The numbers speak for themselves.”
The numbers got a bit better Monday night in an 8-5 victory over the Pirates when Chisholm homered twice – in the first inning and again in the third – to make it home runs in three straight at-bats going back to his Sunday night blast.
Entering Tuesday, when the Yankees saw their game against the Pirates postponed because of severe weather in the area that will be made up as part of a split doubleheader Wednesday, Chisholm was hitting .228 with 16 homers and a .726 OPS in 95 games.
Still subpar numbers to be sure – especially for a player of Chisholm’s talent level.
But Monday night’s homers provided at least part of a template for how the Yankees might be able to stay afloat without Judge. Based on recent updates regarding the broken rib that officially landed him on the injured list on June 5, it increasingly appears that a return by Sept. 1 is the best-case scenario for him
“When he gets it rolling, he’s capable of big things,” Boone said of Chisholm after Monday’s victory.
The Yankees, who quietly have won six of their last eight to inch within 1 ½ games of the AL East-leading Rays, still haven’t solved their offensive woes without their captain (the Yankees, even with this recent mini-burst of wins, are 20-21 without Judge).
But Chisholm, coming off a 30-30 season in 2025 that potentially could have been a 40-40 one if not for a couple of injuries that cost him games, getting hot for a prolonged stretch would go a long way toward easing the burden with Judge out of the lineup.
Ben Rice seems to have pulled himself out of the slump he went through late in the season’s first half, but he alone, obviously, isn’t enough.
Boone has said many times since Chisholm joined the Yankees at the 2024 trade deadline that the second baseman is capable of “carrying” an offense.
Chisholm, never lacking in self-confidence, generally would be the first to agree with the sentiment.
But as players top-to-bottom in the lineup mostly struggled in the weeks after Judge went down, that confidence began to wane.
Teammates – Anthony Volpe and Judge among them – took notice and attempted to pump up the slumping Chisholm.
“The biggest tool I’ve got,” Chisholm said of his confidence. “Sometimes they’ve seen me dragging a little bit lately. They just were like, ‘Bro, let’s not forget who you are. You’re the greatest in the world. You are Jazz Chisholm.’ … I always think I have confidence, but I just feel like I didn’t fully believe in myself at a point in time.”
Chisholm is a free agent after the season, and it is highly unlikely the kind of multi-year, big-money deal he’ll be looking for on the market – regardless of whatever the new parameters are of the new, yet-to-be-agreed-on collective bargaining agreement – will come from the Yankees.
The 28-year-old isn’t even guaranteed to be with the Yankees past this year’s Aug. 3 trade deadline, as it’s not impossible to envision the infielder being included in a package that nets the Yankees one of their primary needs (bullpen help and a righty-hitting catcher).
Chisholm, of course, has no control over that. He does control his performance, one by his own admission has been lacking in 2026. But 2 ½ months of opportunity ahead to change those fortunes – both his and the Yankees’.
“When he’s going good, he’s a game-changer,” Boone said of Chisholm. “He can beat you in a lot of different ways, so we need him. We need him to go on one of those runs.”
It is, as Boone might say, right there in front of him.
Erik Boland started in Newsday's sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.
