KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Turns out Yankees third baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr. is just fine playing the role of playoff villain.
Chisholm made headlines after New York lost Game 2 of its AL Division Series to the Royals this week when he proclaimed they “just got lucky.” And the sellout crowd of 40,312 that greeted him back in Kansas City for Game 3 on Wednesday night reminded him of the comments, booing Chisholm every time he touched the ball or stepped to the plate.
“I loved every single second of it. I love it. It gets my juices flowing,” Chisholm said after the Yankees squeezed out a 3-2 win that put them on the brink of the American League Championship Series. “I’ve never seen anyone boo a bum. It gets us going. That is the reaction I wanted and it got our juices flowing. Sounded like I got to a lot of people.”
Luck wasn't much on Chisholm's side — he was 0 for 4 with a strikeout. But the Yankees still won thanks to an eighth-inning homer by Giancarlo Stanton and a masterful performance by their bullpen, which pieced together 4 1/3 scoreless innings and silenced a feverish crowd witnessing the Royals' first home playoff game in nearly a decade.
New York will try to clinch its spot in the American League Championship Series with Gerrit Cole on the mound Thursday night.
As for Chisholm, well, he's merely the latest Yankees player to suffer the vitriol of Kansas City fans.
Those who were around in 2012, when Kauffman Stadium hosted the All-Star Game, remember the way they spewed venom on Robinson Cano, who had snubbed Royals slugger Billy Butler back when captains picked the Home Run Derby teams. Royals fans continued to boo Cano for years every time he returned to Kansas City.
Chisholm certainly seems to be fine with that potential future.
“He loves it. He enjoys it,” Stanton said. “You get the crowd into it and get him distracted on something, and he’ll be alright.”
The first wave of booing Wednesday night came when Chisholm trotted to the third base line to stand between Stanton and shortstop Anthony Volpe for introductions. It continued during his first at-bat, a groundout to second base, and every time he stepped to the plate the rest of the night — until he grounded out or struck out, and the crowd cheered.
“Bronx cheers,” quite fittingly, for a member of the Yankees.
“Jazz can be colorful sometimes,” New York manager Aaron Boone admitted. "In his head, because of the confidence he has in himself and our group, it's like, ‘Hey, they got lucky.’ But I don’t think that was the case. They obviously played really well. They played two really good games against us and earned themselves a victory (Monday) night.”
The Yankees earned another one themselves Wednesday night. No luck necessary.
“He handled it well,” Boone said of Chisholm's rude welcome in Kansas City. “That’s good for the playoffs to have a little bit of that. I don’t think he meant any disrespect by it at all. You know, it made for a little better environment.”
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