00:04Morning after the Yankees tied their division series with the Boston Red Sox, one game apiece.
00:10Forgive me, I'm going through my usual playoff experience.
00:14I'm beginning already to lose my voice, so forgive me.
00:16If you travel with me on these daily videos all postseason, you'll see the deterioration as the month goes by.
00:24But here, why don't we do this?
00:26Let's do one thing off of the game yesterday, one thing projecting ahead to Game 3, and one overview thing.
00:32The item that sticks out from Game 2 is the full Jazz Chisholm experience.
00:38He obviously was not pleased that he didn't start Game 1 against the tough lefty Garrett Crochet.
00:45And then he came back yesterday and he had two of the key plays in the game.
00:50A diving stop that saves Boston from getting the go-ahead run in the 7th inning.
00:54And then in the bottom of the 8th, a few people score from 1st base on the ball that Austin Wells hits into the right field corner.
01:04By the way, small thing.
01:06That ball obviously is going to be thrown to the plate to try to cut off the go-ahead run.
01:13Austin Wells has got to be on 2nd base.
01:15Another run would have been critical there.
01:16But the big picture is that Chisholm scored.
01:20Yankees got ahead.
01:21That's the final run of the game.
01:23To watch Jazz Chisholm for a year and a half is to know that he can be the best player on the field and that sometimes the way he plays with that skill level, where he's playing too fast and sometimes overzealous, he can cost you a game.
01:40It's the full experience.
01:42He's a 30-30 guy.
01:44The Yankees, this is for something for the offseason and for moving forward.
01:47He enters his walk year next season.
01:50And the Yankees are going to have to decide short-term what do they do about him, which is just play it out.
01:57He's a 30-30 guy.
01:58He has great value to them to play for one more year unless they're worried about how he might behave if he doesn't get an extension.
02:07Or do they trade him, try to get value that way if you don't think you're going to get involved long-term with him or extend him?
02:17He does not feel like a player of the Yankees is going to extend.
02:20I think that their next big batch of money gets, if they can, gets spent on Cody Bellinger.
02:25But that's for another day.
02:27You saw the upside of Chisholm yesterday.
02:30The array of skills.
02:32I always think about players on the field.
02:34That's a funny thing.
02:34If a decathlon broke out, who would win?
02:38And I think it would be a hell of a contest on the Yankees between Cody Bellinger and Jazz Chisholm for this.
02:46Maybe Aaron Judge would join if we have a lot of strength competition besides kind of speed, endurance, etc., jumping.
02:52But you saw the full elements of Jazz Chisholm, what he could bring.
02:59Can he bottle that and do it more?
03:01Number two is about the game tonight.
03:05Who do the Yankees play?
03:09Aaron Boone has already said Jazz Chisholm is starting at second base.
03:12Connelly Early is the lefty starting for the Red Sox.
03:16It's a strange, decisive game.
03:18The two starters are Cam Schlittler and Connelly Early.
03:22They have a combined 18 major league starts, 14 of them by Schlittler.
03:27That's who's starting the game.
03:28And you know this.
03:29This is a do-or-die game.
03:30Both teams could be in their full bullpen to the joy of the Blue Jays sitting there ready to play Saturday against whoever emerges from this.
03:39But because there's a lefty on the mound, there's some question.
03:43The one thing that Boone said he wanted to sleep on was who plays first base in Game 3.
03:51Theory.
03:51He wants to use the word leverage.
03:55He can assure a right versus left at bat to begin the game with Paul Goldschmidt leading off.
04:01Then see how it goes.
04:02The Yankees get the lead.
04:04He has a strong first baseman there.
04:05They'll probably be a righty later on to get Ben Rice into the game to get a favorable matchup.
04:11Though that never came in Game 1 as Crochet and Chapman.
04:14Two lefties had the ball.
04:16And Boston has lots of lefty relievers as anyone who was watching and paying attention in Game 2 sees.
04:22Or he could just go with Rice who has been judging for about 3-4 weeks now.
04:28Every ball off his bat pretty much is alive.
04:31He had a two-run homer in the first inning to get the Yankees off in Game 2 and hit the ball even harder in his second at bat.
04:38Looked like he was going to have a two-run single and just hit it too hard and the ball carried.
04:43And he could start Rice and then decide later on against one of those lefties if he thinks it's a bad lefty matchup for, say, Ryan McMahon.
04:51Does he have a Goldschmidt hit?
04:54And or if the Yankees are leading late, go in and play first base for Rice.
04:59That's how I would go.
05:00So I think in a game like this, just play your best players.
05:04Historically, that would be Goldschmidt who might be a Hall of Famer.
05:07In early October 2025, Ben Rice is a better option than Goldschmidt.
05:18Connolly Early is not Garrett Crochet.
05:21As we saw with the second at bat was against Justin Wilson where he hit the ball 109 miles per hour yesterday, Ben Rice.
05:28And so to me, just play Rice and when and if there's that spot for Goldschmidt to either hit against the lefty or defend late with a lead, go then.
05:40Play your best players.
05:41It's do or die, which leads us to number three.
05:44Sometimes sports could be unfair, but this is how the grades are given.
05:49It's like a professor or a teacher telling you the final is going to count for your entire grade.
05:57The Yankees win tonight and lots of positive things are said about them, at least until we find out what would happen against the Blue Jays or they lose.
06:06And it's going to be back to very familiar terrain, which is fire Cashman, fire Boone.
06:13When are they going to change?
06:14I can't believe they lost again.
06:16They haven't won since 2009.
06:18That's dog years for the Yankees.
06:20It's a very simple test tonight.
06:22And it's like you, it's sports fair and world unfair probably.
06:27And the Yankees have to win tonight.
06:30I wrote about this, nypost.com, because the narrative of the Aaron Judge, Aaron Boone period is they beat a certain kind of team at this time of year and they don't beat a certain kind of team this year.
06:43Since Judge's rookie season in 2017, seven series against AL Central teams, they are seven and oh, they've advanced all seven times, 19 and six.
06:55Those teams feel like they come and they're just happy to be in the postseason and they're a little intimidated by the whole Yankee Stadium often, the Yankees October and the Yankees cakewalk.
07:08Eight other series since then, the Yankees have won one of them.
07:12It was the single elimination game against a team that might as well have been in the AL Central, the A's, who also were kind of overmatched and the Yankees did it.
07:20The other seven series, you know, the Astros, the Rays, Red Sox, and Dodgers, when the other team shows up and is there for the fight, the Yankees are 0-7, right?
07:32The, the, the, the, not, just not good enough there.
07:36The big time losing record, I think it's like 10 and 25 in that time against those teams.
07:40Uh, and Aaron Boone became the manager in 2018 and they just haven't beaten him.
07:47Alex Cora's Red Sox have beaten them twice.
07:50Cora was hired the same year as Boone in 2018.
07:54Cora's Red Sox have a win.
07:56Boone's Yankees have a win here in the 2025 wildcard series.
08:00It's time that the Aarons, Boone and Judge, show that they could win this kind of series.
08:07It, you could look back and say, hey, they did a good job.
08:10They won 94 games.
08:12They lost their ace in Cole.
08:13They lost Clark Schmidt during the season.
08:15They worked in a rookie like, like Schlittler, Warren made 33.
08:18So like, like you could go find the positives.
08:20Another potential MVP season for Judge.
08:24Move along.
08:25And lots of positive things will be said again for at least a week and don't move along.
08:32And we are going to be back in a very familiar territory.
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