After a hot streak in May that saw them win nine of 10 games and 16 of 20, racing to a 35-20 record, the New York Yankees have been forced to come down out of the clouds and face reality.
Dropping two of three each to a pair of arch-rivals, the Los Angeles Dodgers and Boston Red Sox, the Yankees have won just six of their last 11 heading into Thursday’s action, seeing their lead in the American League East tighten to four games over the second place Toronto Blue Jays.
One the Yankees’ main problems this season has been injuries. They’ve been missing career home run king among active players Giancarlo Stanton all season, as well as 2023 Cy Young winner Gerrit Cole — who will miss all of 2025 with Tommy John surgery — and last season’s Rookie of the Year Luis Gil who remains sidelined with an oblique strain, among others.
Chisholm Pulled From Games Injured 2 Nights in a Row
Now it appears the Yankees may be looking at a serious durability problem with another player, 27-year-old infielder Jazz Chisholm Jr., who just eight days removed from his return from the injured list has been forced to leave games with injuries two nights in a row.
Chisholm missed the entire month of May with an oblique muscle tear, returning to lineup on June 3 after suffering the injury on April 29.
On Tuesday night in Kansas City, Chisholm left a game against the Royals with “neck tightness,” an injury that seemed to occur when the Bahamian native dove into third base and was tagged on the head by Maikel Garcia of the Royals.
Chisholm was back in the lineup on Wednesday night as the Yankees took on the Royals again. But he had to be pulled from the game again, this time with “left groin tightness.”
This time, when manager Aaron Boone handed in the lineup card for the Thursday series finale in Kansas City, with New York going for the sweep, Chisholm’s name was not on it.
Boone claimed to be unconerned about his third baseman.
Groin Injury For Chisholm This Time
“I think he’s OK. Felt a little something in his groin,” Boone said, as quoted by the New York Post. “[Strength tests] and all that’s good. So we’ll see what we have.”
The Yankees started Oswald Peraza at third in place of Chisholm, who was listed as day-to-day with the injury.
While the Yankees have not announced an exact diagnosis for Chisholm’s injury, even a mild groin strain can sideline an athlete for two to three weeks.
More serious groin muscle injuries can take a player out of action for up to four months. If that worst-case scenario comes to pass, Chisholm would be out of the Yankees lineup for the remainder of the regular season.
The Yankees travel from Kansas City after Thursday’s game to Boston where they will take on the Red Sox in another three game series, this one at Fenway Park.
Chisholm was not the only absence from the Yankees lineup in Kansas City on Thursday. In a surprising development, reigning American League MVP Aaron Judge was also out.
Judge’s absence appears to be simply a case of a scheduled rest day. Judge is putting together a history-making season leading the league in OPS (1.27), batting average (.304), RBIs (59), runs scored (64) and WAR (5.6).
To get there, however, Judge played in all 66 Yankee games this season, taking his first day off in Game 67 on Thursday.
