Yankees' Jazz Chisholm Jr. welcomes boos from Royals fans in new role of playoff villain

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — It turns out that Yankees third baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr. plays the role of playoff villain quite well.

Chisholm made headlines afterward New York lost Game 2 of their AL Division Series to the Royals this week when he announced they were “just lucky.” And the sellout crowd of 40,312 that greeted him in Kansas City for Game 3 on Wednesday night reminded him of the comments, booing Chisholm every time he touched the ball or stepped to the plate.

“I enjoyed every single second of it. I love it. It gets me flowing,” Chisholm said after the Yankees earned a 3-2 victory that moved them to the brink of the American League Championship Series. “I've never seen anyone boo a bum. It gets us going. That's the reaction I wanted and it got us flowing. It sounded like I reached a lot of people.”

Chisholm didn't have much luck – he was 0 for 4 with one strikeout. But The Yankees still won Thanks to an eighth-inning home run from Giancarlo Stanton and a masterful performance from their bullpen, which put together 4 1/3 scoreless innings and silenced a feverish crowd that was witnessing the Royals' first home playoff game in nearly a decade.

New York will try to secure its spot the American League Championship Series with Gerrit Cole on the mound Thursday night.

As for Chisholm, he is just the latest Yankees player to suffer the wrath of Kansas City fans.

Those who were there when Kauffman Stadium hosted the All-Star Game in 2012 remember the way they poisoned Robinson Cano, who had snubbed Royals slugger Billy Butler as the captains won the Home Run Derby. Teams selected. For years, Royals fans booed Cano every time he returned to Kansas City.

Chisholm certainly seems happy with this potential future.

“He loves it. He enjoys it,” Stanton said. “If you get the crowd going and distract him from something, he’ll be fine.”

The first wave of boos came Wednesday night when Chisholm trotted to the third base line to line up between Stanton and shortstop Anthony Volpe for introductions. That's how it went with his first at-bat, a groundout to second base, and every time he stepped to the plate the rest of the night – until he groundout or strikeout and the crowd cheered.

“Bronx cheers,” quite fitting for a member of the Yankees.

“Jazz can be colorful sometimes,” admitted New York manager Aaron Boone. “Because of the confidence he has in himself and in our group, in his head he's thinking, 'Hey, they got lucky.' But I don't think that was the case. They obviously played really well. They played two really good games against us and got a win (Monday night).”

The Yankees earned another hit of their own on Wednesday night. No luck needed.

“He handled it well,” Boone said of Chisholm’s rude reception in Kansas City. “It’s good that the playoffs have a little bit of that. I don't think he meant any disrespect. You know, it made for a little better environment.”

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