HOUSTON — Yankees second baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr. exited Thursday’s 8-4 win over the Astros with contusions in both knees suffered on separate inning-ending plays, but was optimistic he would be back in the lineup Friday when New York hosts first-place Toronto in a critical AL East series.
Chisholm aggravated his right knee on a second-inning grounder by Ramón Urías. In the third, Chisholm’s left knee collided with the helmet of a sliding Jose Altuve when Chisholm tagged Altuve out on a stolen base attempt.
Chisholm batted in the fourth and struck out swinging against Cristian Javier but was replaced in the bottom of the inning by José Caballero.
“The first one, I just landed on my knee kind of hard,” Chisholm said. “The ball got up on me kind of quick. The umpire was kind of blocking my vision, so I couldn’t really see it. [I] got down to my knee, banged my knee pretty hard.
“The second one, Altuve slid into second base, got the other one, so I was just like, ‘go get ‘em checked, make sure they’re all right.’”
Chisholm said he wanted to be sure there were no tears or ligament damage. He began icing the knees as soon as he came out of the game and planned to continue with ice and compression when the Yankees got back to New York.
“I feel like they’re pretty good,” he added. “I feel like tomorrow they’re going to feel a lot better.”
Entering the day hitting .242/.339/.499 with 28 homers, 78 RBIs and 26 stolen bases, Chisholm is vying for just the fourth 30/30 season by a Yankee. That feat has only been accomplished so far by Alfonso Soriano in 2002 and ’03 and Bobby Bonds in 1975.
