With their season on the line and a righty on the mound, the Yankees are rolling out a lineup that has their best players in it again.
A night after Jazz Chisholm Jr. and Ben Rice both sat against Red Sox lefty Garrett Crochet, which turned into a 3-1 loss, they were in the lineup against right-hander Brayan Bello in Game 2 of the AL wild-card series on Wednesday.
Aaron Boone had tried to stack as many right-handed hitters as he could in Tuesday’s lineup against Crochet, meaning Rice and Chisholm were on the bench in favor of Paul Goldschmidt and Amed Rosario.
With the Red Sox going from a dominant Crochet to lefty closer Aroldis Chapman, Rice never got into the game while Chisholm entered in the top of the eighth for defensive purposes, then flied out against Chapman with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth.
Goldschmidt ended up going 2-for-4 while Rosario was 0-for-3.
The left-handed hitting Ryan McMahon also returned to the lineup Wednesday after José Caballero had gotten the start at third base on Tuesday.
Rosario could have played third base, allowing Chisholm to play second, but the Yankees valued defense with Max Fried on the mound, so they wanted the right-handed hitting Caballero at third over Rosario.
That decision seemed to bother Chisholm, who conducted most of his brief postgame interview with his back facing reporters.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
