Yankees' Jazz Chisholm likely heads to IL with UCL injury in disastrous gut punch

While the New York Yankees have yet to officially deliver the final blow to Jazz Chisholm Jr.'s 2024 season, the writing is certainly on the wall that the injury he attempted to "shake out" as it was "throbbing" on Monday night was as bad as it appeared.

Chisholm dove headfirst into the plate to score the second run of Monday night's ill-fated 12-2 loss to the Chicago White Sox, a game that spiraled out of control after he left, nursing a sore non-throwing elbow.

Initial X-Rays were negative, but as anyone knows, an X-Ray can only tell you so much about potential ligament damage (eg, next to nothing). The Yankees had to wait for the swelling to go down, and performed an MRI on Chisholm, who was in "good spirits" following the game's final out.

Unfortunately, that exam delivered murky and terrible news. Chisholm will "likely" head to the Injured List with a UCL injury. Now, the team must determine whether or not surgery will follow, in case you (like a real idiot) took that "likely" as positive news the first time you read through this tweet.

Yankees' Jazz Chisholm heads to IL with UCL injury, surgery possible

And so, the nightmare continues. Whether or not Brian Cashman acquires a good player at the trade deadline doesn't seem to matter. It's just the fact that he acquires them at all that leads to them disappearing with injury, before they're ever really able to impact a playoff run. Frankie Montas subtracted some team WAR before exiting stage right with the shoulder injury he'd been harboring all along. Andrew Benintendi was beginning to come around in 2022 when his hamate bone snapped. Chisholm, an invaluable spark plug to a stale team, had hit seven home runs in 14 games, posting a 1.062 OPS while learning third base on the fly. You cannot put a price tag on joy. He brought it in spades.

If he's miraculously able to avoid surgery, this will be an acceptable outcome for the Yankees. If not? It remains patently ridiculous that New York has already seen Didi Gregorius, Aaron Hicks, Gleyber Torres, and Jasson Dominguez go down with position player Tommy John surgeries in recent years, and might be adding another to the list with a damaged non-throwing arm.