NEW YORK (AP) — New York Yankees second baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr. said Friday that he doesn't plan to start wearing a protective cup, one day after getting hit in the groin by a foul ball.
“If you don’t trust your hands, I would recommend wearing a cup,” Chisholm said ahead of the Yankees game against Cincinnati. “I feel like it’s more defensively that you would wear a cup than hitting. At the same time, I just never thought about wearing a cup.”
In
the fourth inning of Thursday’s 5-1 loss to the White Sox, Chisholm fouled a 2-2 curveball from Sean Burke off his groin. He was down for several minutes as trainer Tim Lentych attended to him and then limped off the field to get treated with ice packs.
“The trainers and he followed up this morning but, I felt good about it last night,” New York manager Aaron Boone said. “I got with him last night and he seemed like he was going to be fine. They wanted to do some things this morning just to be sure, but I sent the lineup out last night because I felt confident about it and if we had to adjust we would.”
Chisholm described the pain as “a million,” and said he never wore a cup in the minor leagues, where it is mandatory.
“I’ve never worn a cup,” Chisholm said. “I’m not going change. Just an unlucky instance right there."
Chisholm is one of a number of current non-catchers not wearing a protective cup. Among the more famous instances was Adrian Beltre, and Boone said he was surprised when he learned the Hall of Fame third baseman never wore a cup.
“In December going to hit soft toss, I put a cup on,” Boone said. “That’s the difference between this generation and my generation. I did nothing without a cup baseball related. The first time I heard Adrian Beltre didn’t wear a cup, blew my mind, but now I know a lot of these guys don’t wear cups."
This season, Chisholm has borrowed a bat from teammates, but joked he was not going to borrow a protective cup.
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