Jazz Chisholm has made it clear that when he is healthy enough to return to the New York Yankees’ lineup, he wants to get back to second base.
DJ LeMahieu is filling in for Chisholm at second right now, a position where he won the Gold Glove twice with the Colorado Rockies, in 2014 and 2017.
In a recent interview with The Athletic, both players seemed to indicate that they would prefer to play second base, expressing hesitation on the subject of being bumped to third.
“It’s whatever,” Chisholm said, shrugging. “I already did it.”
“Yeah,” LeMahieu said, “I feel really comfortable right now (at second base). I’m sure we’ll deal with it when we get there.”
The Yankees have not made any announcements about the players’ relative positions once Chisholm is well again. Yankees manager Aaron Boone told the Athletic, “We’ll cross that bridge when we get there.”
Before suffering a right oblique injury on April 30 during a game against the Baltimore Orioles, the 27-year-old infielder had a season batting average of .181. His offensive performance has been fine, but his defensive performance has been clutch for the Yankees, and it tracks that he would pride himself on being an effective second baseman.
Chisholm’s road to recovery has been swift so far (knock on wood), and fans got a major update from Aaron Boone on Monday that he would be taking on a full practice on Tuesday. The Somerset Patriots shared a video showing Chisholm batting in Somerset on Tuesday via Twitter.
Things are looking up for Chisholm at the moment, and he could be back with the team in the next week or so, which aligns with the leadership’s original recovery projections. Only time will tell if he’ll get back to the job he wants, or if he’ll have to cede that part of the floor to LeMahieu.
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