Yankees’ Jazz Chisholm Jr. avoids broken-bat danger: ‘You don’t want to die’

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CLEVELAND — The bat shattered and a slice of the jagged wood tumbled through the air toward New York Yankees second baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr.

He turned away to protect himself.

“I’ve seen guys get stabbed with broken bats in person,” he said Monday after the Yankees’ 6-4 loss to the Cleveland Guardians at Progressive Field. “I know how bad the injury can be.”

It was a scary moment in a strange game for Chisholm, who has had an odd year so far.

The good?

He crushed a two-run home run in the eighth inning that sliced the Guardians’ lead to two. Also, he avoided getting hit by Brayan Rocchio’s exploding bat in the fourth inning. Not only was a large splinter of the bat traveling toward him, but the baseball was, too.

“You don’t want to die,” he said. “You’ve got a sharp object coming your way.”

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— EL TIO POLO (@picksdepolo) April 21, 2025

The bad?

Rocchio’s soft liner scored the runner on third base with one out and extended the Yankees’ deficit to 5-0. The bat fell well short of Chisholm, and if he had stayed in the play, he likely would have recorded the out and kept the runner at third base with two outs for Clarke Schmidt, who took the loss after giving up five earned runs in four innings.

Chisholm also struck out looking at all three pitches in his first-inning at-bat, which is unusual. Then he crushed a line drive at 95.4 mph down the first-base line, only for Carlos Santana to snatch it for an unassisted double play in the fourth inning. And he whiffed so badly in a sixth-inning strikeout that he slammed his bat and helmet immediately afterward, and then had a brief conversation with the plate umpire.

Chisholm was asked how stunned he was when he lined into the double play.

“I don’t think I can say that on TV,” he said. “But it’s just been unlucky.”

It’s been a difficult season for Chisholm, who said his appeal of the one-game suspension he was given Friday was still pending and that he didn’t know when it would be resolved. Chisholm was suspended after he was ejected for arguing balls and strikes against the Tampa Bay Rays and then posting on X that the umpire’s call “wasn’t even (expletive) close.” Posting to social media during games is against MLB policy.

Chisholm has also underperformed at the plate. He entered Monday in a 1-for-15 skid. Overall, he is hitting .161 with seven home runs, 14 RBIs and a .680 OPS in 87 at-bats. He has struck out 31 times. Three of his home runs came in the first three games of the season.

The Yankees need Chisholm to step up and help anchor the middle and bottom portions of their lineup, especially with Anthony Volpe, Austin Wells and Cody Bellinger scuffling to start the season.

Chisholm may be right that he’s been a tad unlucky. His 16.7 percent barrel rate was within the top 86th percentile of MLB hitters going into Monday.

“I feel like he’s been hitting the ball hard,” manager Aaron Boone said. “He’s been hitting the ball on the screws a fair amount. There’s been some swing-and-miss there and there’s been some (strikeouts), but he’s so talented, he’ll get it going and get hot. He can really — with what he does on the bases and the power, can really get it going.”

Chisholm called his home run “validating.” It traveled 108.1 mph and went 383 feet over the wall in right field in an 0-2 count.

“Still hitting the ball hard but finally getting it to fall somewhere that’s not in the park at all,” he said. “Trying to get the base hits, as well, not only home runs. It was very relieving, but at the same time, still got to keep on working and grinding through it.”

Still, Chisholm was thinking about the broken bat that was heading his way. Schmidt said he had never seen something like that before.

“That was the first one,” he said. “It’s a game. You kind of see everything new, and it seems like something new always happens in this game. You continue to see things that you don’t see.”

But Boone pointed out that something similar happened Sunday against the Rays. Aaron Judge’s bat broke on a grounder to third base in the third inning. The bat seemed to distract the Rays’ Junior Caminero, who couldn’t get a glove on the grounder and then pointed at the piece of broken bat in the grass as the ball trickled into left field.

Chisholm said he was once hit with a broken bat. It was when he was playing in High A for the Arizona Diamondbacks. He was at shortstop, and the broken bat hit him in the calf. He said while playing with the Miami Marlins, he watched it happen to others “on a couple of plays.”

“The toughest thing to do as a baseball player right now is to stay on the field,” he said. “At the same time, we’ve got to protect ourselves when we’re playing out there, especially when stuff like that’s happening.”

(Photo of Paul Goldschmidt congratulating Jazz Chisholm Jr. on his home run Monday: Jason Miller / Getty Images)

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