Jazz Chisholm completely botches David Bednar's miracle escape in disastrous Yankees walk-off loss

It may be April 11th, but the New York Yankees are already playing some real June Swoon-y-ass baseball. Saturday's loss at The Trop against the Tampa Bay Rays may have been the game that swung this putrid stretch from "blip" to "full-on early tailspin" and, of course, it was Jazz Chisholm Jr. who put the cherry on top.

After nearly a full game of offensive silence, Jose Caballero ripped a clutch two-out, two-run double to put the Yankees up a run entering the bottom of the eighth. Naturally, because these are the kinds of things that happen to the Yankees when they're stuck in a nightmare, the lead couldn't survive three batters; Nick Fortes doubled off Max Fried, advanced to third on a bunt, and scored on an infield single (Chisholm forgot to cover first, but that ended up irrelevant).

The Yankees didn't score in the ninth (shocker), but held the line, bringing up an instance of every Yankee fan's favorite modern baseball tradition: road extra innings! Believe it or not, Caballero came through with two outs to drive in the tiebreaking run. Of course, they didn't manufacture a run of any kind and Chisholm came up empty in an attempt to get one home the easy way, but still ... slim lead. Maybe David Bednar could nail it down. Maybe he could keep it tied, refresh the slate, and give the ol' Yanks a shot to painfully botch an opportunity on a silver platter in the 11th. Who knew what wonders awaited us?

Unfortunately, this preordained loss ended in unethical fashion, with the Rays bunting back-to-back to tie the game and Bednar intentionally walking the bases loaded. Bednar somehow struck out Hunter Feduccia, and was touched again by the Hand of God when Jonathan Aranda topped one to second.

All Jazz had to do was tag the runner and flip to first for the double play/miracle escape. Unfortunately, he instead missed the tag, dropped the ball, and fired to first, where the ball was also dropped for good measure. Slop. Midsummer slop two months early.

Yankees lose utter disaster in walk-off fashion to Rays. Where's the urgency?

Remember prior to Game 3 of the Giants series when Giancarlo Stanton and Paul Goldschmidt led the Yankees vets in a meeting about taking every game seriously, preaching added urgency on a daily basis? Somehow, that was this same season. Since then, the Yankees have gone from 7-1 to 8-6, with their only win during that stretch an absolutely stolen victory thanks to the power prowess of Amed Rosario.

Plenty of Yankees have embodied this reversion to a painful norm, but Chisholm - admittedly too cold in the Bronx - perhaps most of all has played the part of "malaise". Maybe he needs to have a chat with the climate control operators at Tropicana Field before Sunday's finale.