Marlins’ Jazz Chisholm Jr. isn’t shy about his long-term goal: ‘Be a Hall of Famer’
The Jazz Chisholm Jr. home run — and swings like the one he put on Jeurys Familia’s sinker in the eighth inning Thursday to deliver the Miami Marlins a 3-2 win are gorgeous enough in their own right — are only the start of the spectacle for the middle infielder.
There’s the immediate reaction: He leans back after his uppercut swings and briefly watches it sail through the air, then he looks to the New York Mets’ dugout — it’s habit, he insists, because his minor-league dugouts were typically on the first-base side — and makes his face into a scowl. When he rounds first base, he points into the crowd.
There’s the ultimate celebration: He Euro steps into home plate, high fives Miguel Rojas near the on-deck circle, then has his moment with everyone in the dugout. At the end of the receiving line, he and Lewis Brinson pull off an elaborate handshake.
It doesn’t even stop when the game is over: He sits down for his postgame Zoom press conference with “A LIVING LEGEND” on his T-shirt ad gold chains around his neck, ready to place major expectations upon himself. “By the time my career’s over,” he says, “be a Hall of Famer.”
“He seems to have a flair for the dramatic,” manager Don Mattingly said, pointing out the obvious.
Chisholm’s brief career has had no shortage of high-profile moments, but his eighth-inning homer Thursday ranks near the top. Miami once trailed 2-0 before rallying to tie the game at 2-2. When Javier Baez sparked the Mets with a first-inning double and third-inning homer, Chisholm took it upon himself to one-up the New York middle infielder.
In the bottom of the eighth, the rookie pounced on a 98-mph sinker by Familia and launched it 402 feet into the second deck in right field at loanDepot park.
The 402 feet, of course, were just an estimate and Chisholm put it bluntly when asked whether he thought it sounded right: “I don’t.”
“I’m not sure I’ve seen a ball go farther than that in this building,” Mattingly said. “That was stomped on.”
The homer was Chisholm’s 15th of the season and it came just two innings after he stole his 19th base. He’s the first Miami rookie to put together a 15-15 season since Hanley Ramirez in 2006, “but the goal was way higher than that,” Chisholm said, “and if I get there I still wouldn’t be satisfied.”
It’s because those Hall of Fame expectations are no joke. On Chisholm’s first road trip of the season, his teammates made him give a Hall of Fame speech. The 23-year-old Bahamian, of course, obliged.
“I think I’ve already got that one intact,” he said.
On Wednesday, Chisholm and people from across the organization all gathered on the field to look at the big screen, and watch Derek Jeter give his induction speech at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.
Chisholm said he started watching just to see if Jeter would look nervous — he wanted something to rib his CEO about — and then he started to soak in all the stories.
Jeter, after all, has gotten where Chisholm wants to be. It’s the same reason he looks at Baez and tries to best him or looks at Ronald Acuna Jr., or Juan Soto or any other young star in the sport.
“Every time I see someone on the field that’s a superstar that I’m going up against, I feel that I need to be better than them,” Chisholm said. “I’ve already set my long term goal to be who I want to be and those are the guys that I’ve got to play better than to be that guy.”
Marlins’ Jesus Luzardo continues turnaround
The first inning was a bit too familiar for Jesus Luzardo. The pitcher cruised through two batters, notched a strikeout and then hit a wall. Walks, wild pitches and missed spots derailed a once promising inning, and dug the Marlins an early hole.
When he finally escaped, Luzardo trudged his way back into the dugout, gathered himself and hopped back out to the mound to put together another encouraging start in Miami.
Luzardo pitched 4 2/3 more innings, allowed only one more hit, two more walks and one more run before he walked back off the mound for good in the sixth inning to a nice ovation from the 8,075 in attendance.
After five straight debacles to start his career with his new team, Luzardo has delivered three straight solid outings to remind Miami why he was the return piece in its trade sending star outfielder Starling Marte to the Oakland Athletics in July.
It wasn’t quite Luzardo best yet for the Marlins, but it was only because of two bad moments. In the first inning, the left-handed pitcher allowed a two-out double to Baez, then walked two straight and threw two wild pitches to let the Mets score. In the third, he hung a curveball to the two-time All-Star and Baez clobbered it for a 438-foot home run to put New York ahead 2-0.
The 23-year-old from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland went 5 2/3 innings, allowed two hits, four walks and two earned runs, and matched a career-high with eight strikeouts while generating 23 swings and misses. After posting a 9.67 ERA in his first five starts for Miami, Luzardo has a 2.60 ERA in his last three.
Marlins’ Anderson may need surgery
Brian Anderson and the Marlins are sorting through all options after the third baseman’s latest injury, and waiting for doctors’ opinions before figuring out what path his recovery might take.
One potential option, Anderson said, could be surgery on his left shoulder, which twice sent him to the injured list this season.
“They’ve been just getting different doctors’ opinions, seeing where we’re going to go from here on out,” said Anderson, who also plays some in the outfield. “We’re just waiting. Kind of the crappy part of it is just waiting and not knowing what the plan is.”
Miami placed Anderson on the 10-day IL with a left shoulder subluxation Friday, effectively ending his season after just 67 games.
It was the second time Anderson sustained a left shoulder subluxation in 2021. He also injured the shoulder in May and missed about two months.
Anderson also went on the IL with a left oblique strain in April and missed 11 games.
Should Anderson need surgery, he expects it would take about the entire offseason to recover. He expects he would be ready for spring training.
“That’s I think why we want to get those opinions soon,” Anderson said. “So we know which direction to go, so that I can have a full next season.”
Anderson is batting .249 with a .715 on-base-plus-slugging percentage and seven home runs in 264 plate appearances this year. When he was in the lineup, Anderson was the everyday third baseman and he was hoping to solidify his place the Marlins’ long-term plans in Kim Ng’s first season as general manager. He’s under team control for two more seasons.
In the meantime, Anderson is still able to run, exercise his core and do workouts with his right arm. He also said the shoulder feels better now than it did the last time he hurt it.
“Physically, it feels a little bit better,” Anderson said. “The doctors have been telling me that it’s very usual that the first time you pop it out it feels worse and then as you keep doing it it’s not better for it, but it actually hurts less.”
Marlins remember September 11 attacks
Miami held a moment of silence ahead of its Thursday game against the New York Mets to remember the Sept. 11 attacks ahead of the 20th anniversary.
The Marlins will be on the road for the actual anniversary, so the organization held a moment of silence at 6:23, then recognized members of South Florida’s Urban Search and Rescue Team, who were deployed to New York and Washington in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks.
This story was originally published September 9, 2021 at 5:50 PM.
