Jazz Chisholm Jr.’s recent power surge has landed him in the Home Run Derby.
The Yankees’ All-Star second baseman was announced Thursday as the final participant for Monday’s Derby at Truist Park in Atlanta.
Chisholm, who homered twice Wednesday to give him 17 on the year and seven in his last 12 games, made it no secret that he would be interested in the event if MLB came calling, which it evidently did.
Chisholm, who homered twice on Wednesday to give him 17 on the season and seven in his last 12 games, made it no secret that he would be interested in the event if MLB came calling, which it evidently did.
He joins an eight-man field alongside Ronald Acuña Jr., Byron Buxton, Junior Caminero, Oneil Cruz, Cal Raleigh, Brent Rooker and James Wood.
If nothing else, Chisholm should bring an entertaining flair to the Home Run Derby, becoming the first Yankee to participate in it since Aaron Judge and Gary Sánchez in 2017.
The Yankees, meanwhile, may just be hoping Chisholm, who went 1-for-4 in the Yankees’ 6-5 come-from-behind win over the Mariners on Thursday night, gets through it healthy after he missed the month of May with an oblique strain and then has been playing through a sore shoulder in recent weeks.
Clarke Schmidt’s surgery has been set.
The right-hander will undergo Tommy John surgery on his torn UCL on Friday, performed by Dr. Keith Meister, which will knock him out for the rest of this season and likely most, if not all, of next year.
Manager Aaron Boone said Thursday it was still too early to know the exact kind of procedure Schmidt will have and whether it would involve an internal brace, which in some cases can speed up the timeline for a return.
Gerrit Cole, who underwent UCL reconstruction surgery with an internal brace in March, has said he is expecting a recovery timeline of around 14 months.
Either way, Schmidt’s absence — along with those of Cole and Luis Gil, who could return from a strained lat by August — has only increased the need for the Yankees to acquire a starting pitcher by the July 31 trade deadline, with general manager Brian Cashman on Wednesday citing pitching as his biggest concern.
“It’s always pitching,” Cashman said. “We’ve taken hits to the rotation going back to when we lost Cole and then Luis Gil and obviously now Schmidt. … We have people that are capable, but I think it also needs to get some help. If I can do so, great. But there’s no guarantees.”
One in-house arm that could be of help is swingman Ryan Yarbrough, who had been a revelation as a fill-in No. 5 starter until he strained his oblique in mid-June.
The left-hander finally started playing catch again Wednesday after a shutdown of nearly two and a half weeks.
If all goes well in his rehab, he could be an option again by early August.
Trent Grisham returned to the lineup Thursday for the first time since Sunday as Boone wanted to give him a few days of rest after dealing with a hamstring scare last week.
“Not 100 percent with it but, obviously, we were able to dodge a bullet there a little bit in Toronto,” Boone said. “Still dealing with it at least on some level, but good enough to play.”
Boone is hoping Mark Leiter Jr. can resume throwing as early as this weekend after landing on the injured list Tuesday for a left fibular head stress fracture.
“It’ll be symptom-based,” Boone said. “Obviously, the different tests he’s got to go through strength-wise and all that. Hopefully he’s up and throwing as early as this weekend and we start to build from there. But no real timeline.”
Fellow reliever Yerry De Los Santos (right elbow discomfort), meanwhile, is getting close to throwing live batting practice.
A Gehrig-like streak will come to an end this weekend when Yankee Stadium PA announcer Paul Olden takes the Cubs series off due to a personal obligation.
Through Thursday, Olden had been behind the microphone for every Yankee Stadium home game in the regular season and playoffs since it opened in 2009, a streak of 1,339 straight games.
Mark Fratto, NYCFC’s PA announcer, will step in for Olden.
Whenever he was given the chance, Boone railed against the Automatic Ball-Strike System that was used on a trial basis in spring training this year.
But he sounded more amenable to it being used in the All-Star Game next week as he manages the AL team.
“I think it’ll be good and another test run on a big stage to see it play out,” he said. “I like the dramatic effect of it in the building, which I think will be cool. I don’t know if and when or what the final iteration will be moving forward when we get into next year for real games, but I like that we continue to test these things, whether it be in the minor leagues or a showcase game like this.”