Jazz Chisholm: 'Sore loser' Maikel Garcia 'tried to go and injure' Anthony Volpe
The benches briefly cleared during the Yankees’ ALDS-clinching win over the Royals on Thursday night, as Maikel Garcia slid hard into Anthony Volpe at second base, leading to Jazz Chisholm coming over from third to defend his teammate.
Volpe didn’t seem bothered, even patting Garcia on the back after the slide, but Garcia and Chisholm seemed to exchange words before the benches, and bullpens, emptied.
After the game, as champagne flowed, Chisholm told reporters that he didn’t care for the slide, and felt Garcia tried to “injure” Volpe.
“I just felt like he tried to go and injure Volpe because he was being a sore loser,” Chisholm said, via MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch. “He was talking a lot on Instagram and Twitter and stuff. I do the same thing, but I'm not gonna go and try and injure somebody if they're winning a game, and I didn't like that so I told him we don't do that on this side and I'm always gonna stick up for my guys.”
Gerrit Cole, who was on the mound, even stepped towards second base after the slide, telling reporters that he didn’t care for how hard Garcia went into Volpe. Still, Volpe saw it as a hard slide from a team that was fighting for its playoff life.
“The stakes are high,” Volpe said, via the New York Post. “Everyone’s playing hard, everyone’s trying to win. They’re playing for their season. He went in hard, but we’re always going to stand up.”
The brief dust-up brought back memories of the late 1970s, when the Yanks and Royals were at each other’s throats in the ALCS on a seemingly annual basis, but this one ended with far less fireworks.
“It was like we were out there and it was right back in. We were at the end of a playoff game,” Aaron Boone said. “If there's some upset over the slide, just go back and show a little Hal McRae/Willie Randolph and we'll all laugh at ourselves.”
