Damning Anthony Rizzo quote could reflect Jazz Chisholm's Yankees trade fate

In a weekend packed with the inexplicable, the New York Yankees finished off their four-game set at Fenway Park with the inexcusable.

With a sweep at stake, it was inexcusable for Carlos Rodón's one-hit bid to be matched by Sonny Gray bedeviling and beguiling no-hitter into the eighth. After miraculously tying the game against Aroldis Chapman and holding the line in the bottom of the ninth, it was inexcusable for a 4-2 lead to be erased in eight pitches with the 7-8-9 hitters up and much more than that on the line. Yes, Fernando Cruz had an off night. It happens. It was horrifying to see last night, but it happens. It is much more inexcusable to have a bullpen with four viable relievers, one of whom is Paul Blackburn, forcing David Bednar into the game in the eighth inning and leaving the Yankees desperate in a found-money save situation.

And, though it didn't ultimately dictate the outcome of the game — hilariously, Anthony Volpe walked in the ninth where Jazz Chisholm Jr. almost certainly would have K'd — the second baseman's reaction to a check-swing call, ejection, and departure from the stadium were all wholly inexcusable.

It's still unlikely Chisholm leaves the Yankees this summer, ahead of his scheduled free agency "payday" (awesome walk year, dude!), but the possibility cannot be put to bed, given how free Anthony Rizzo felt to criticize him on NBC's Sunday Night broadcast. Rizzo is no longer in the Yankees clubhouse, but still holds outsized influence there. Sitting in the dugout, Rizzo blasted Chisholm's short-sighted decision to leave his already floundering teammates high and dry (and, yes, the Yankees are very lucky that Volpe looked like an improvement).

Unsurprisingly, by the time the shellshocked team was forced to recount how they turned a shutout loss into a stirring win and back into a gut punch in a half hour, Chisholm was nowhere to be found.

Less than a week ago, Chisholm's mid-game Blow Pop went from a silly controversy to the silliest controversy to a postgame rallying cry and galvanizing moment. Now, the player and team are further in the mud than ever. 25 men saw fit to defend themselves and pick their heads up. One did not.

Did Anthony Rizzo say what Aaron Judge cannot about Yankees' Jazz Chisholm Jr.?

Rizzo is not Judge's proxy, but he's also not a totally independent arbiter. He and Judge essentially ran the Yankees clubhouse in lockstep from the moment of his arrival in 2021 through the end of his career. If Rizzo felt frustrated enough to speak on Chisholm's lapse on a public broadcast, knowing full well it would get back to the locker room and Judge would have to deal with it ... one would have to think that he did so knowing Judge would be aligned on the messaging.

A tough look in a weekend full of them. Of course, diagnosing issues is the easy part. Moving forward and acquiring Luis Arraez in a mid-July stunner is quite another. Maybe, while Aaron Boone has the general public distracted with bizarre quotes about how the Yankees eat pieces of sh*t for breakfast, the leaders behind the scenes can pull some strings.

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