LOS ANGELES — Jazz Chisholm Jr. remains in good spirits following a sprained left elbow that sent him to the Yankees’ injured list earlier this week.
After playing catcher on the field before Friday night’s series opener against the Tigers at Comerica Park, the third baseman reiterated that he has not felt any pain since the first day of his elbow injury, when he slid headfirst onto home plate in Chicago on Monday.
Chisholm reported that his body has responded well to all types of treatment, including exercises to strengthen his shoulder and the areas surrounding his injury. With surgery no longer an option due to the official diagnosis, Chisholm is confident he will soon be able to rejoin his active teammates.
“It’s 100 percent realistic that I can be back at the end of the 10 days (on the injured list),” Chisholm said.
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He added: “It’s a little worse than I thought, but I’m glad it’s not a serious injury.”
Chisholm’s plan is to start swing training again in the next few days. He admitted he wanted to quickly get back to baseball activities earlier this week, but he’s keeping the Yankees’ long-term goals in mind.
“The first day was really tough,” Chisholm said, “until (Aaron) Judge and (Juan) Soto and the guys came to me and said, ‘Hey, instead of coming back and playing today, we’d rather you take 10 days, make sure you’re right, and then come back and help us make it to October. And win in October.'”
As confident as Chisholm sounded, the end of his 10-day statute of limitations could be too much for him. Yankees manager Aaron Boone was also asked about Chisholm’s timetable on Friday, and his answer was based more on hope than certainty.
“He’s responded well to treatment the first couple of days,” Boone said. “He’s got really good strength and range of motion and everything. So it’s going to be that treatment to get all the pain out and then hopefully start some baseball activities and see how that goes, how you improve. Hopefully it doesn’t take too long.”
When reminded that Chisholm was avoiding surgery, which would have been a major blow given the former Marlin’s impact in the pinstripe jersey since being signed before the trade deadline, Boone relented.
“Yeah,” he said, “and hopefully it stays that way. But again, you never know until he’s back playing and going full throttle. But I would say the early signs here in the first few days have been encouraging at least.”
Chisholm posted a .316 batting average with a 1.063 OPS in his first 14 games with the Yankees and made a seamless transition to the new position of third baseman. He won’t be eligible to play until next week at the earliest, as he was retroactively placed on the IL on August 13.
To say Chisholm can’t wait to get back out there would be an understatement.
“I think it’s a good sign that he’s feeling that way,” Boone said. “Hopefully everything continues to go well today and tomorrow as far as range of motion, pain, strength and everything, and then we can get back to baseball.”
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Max Goodman can be reached at [email protected].
