Such is life with your back too often against the wall in October.
On Tuesday, Jazz Chisholm Jr., who smoked the go-ahead home run into the second deck in right, breathed life into the Yankees.
On Wednesday, he helped bury them.
The Yankees second baseman made a critical error that led to two unearned runs and could not come through with his bat in a season-ending 5-2 heartbreaker. The Blue Jays celebrated the ALDS victory on the Yankees home turf in The Bronx.
Chisholm connected for just four hits in seven postseason games — one of those, of course, putting the Yankees in front in Game 3 of the division series — and ended his October hitting .182.
But his playoff run might be remembered for Wednesday’s seventh inning.
The Yankees were down one run and determined to keep the contest within a swing’s distance. With one out and Ernie Clement on first base, Toronto’s Andrés Giménez sent a well-struck grounder to Chisholm, who could have fielded and flipped to Anthony Volpe to begin what would have been a frame-ending double play.
But the ball bounded off the heel of Chisholm’s glove and rolled into center field, continuing an inning in which the Blue Jays had two runners on base with one out.
“Didn’t think it was going to play the way it played,” Chisholm said. “Been thinking about that since the play happened. Still thinking about it now. At the end of the day, we got to move on eventually. I got three months to move on now.
“I’m probably going to be thinking about this when the season starts next year.”
The misplay knocked Cam Schlittler from the game, and two batters later Devin Williams surrendered a two-run single to Nathan Lukes to give the Blue Jays a three-run edge.
The moment might have been even more frustrating for Chisholm considering the inning prior. In the sixth inning, he stepped to bat against Yariel Rodriguez with Aaron Judge on second and Giancarlo Stanton on first — the first at-bat of the Yankees’ night with a runner in scoring position and a single away from tying the game.
That single never came: Chisholm grounded the second pitch he saw harmlessly to Ernie Clement at second, ending the threat and continuing the Yankees’ offensive frustration. On a night Chisholm stepped up four times and reached base once on an eighth-inning walk, he recorded four outs because of his fourth-inning double play.
A career season for Chisholm, who moved from second base to third when the team asked, who was an All-Star and who smacked 31 home runs with 31 steals, ended on a poor note.
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