Jazz Chisholm Jr. says this hit almost broke his thumb, a breakdown
What Happened
In this short Jomboy breakdown, Jazz Chisholm Jr. fields a hard-hit ground ball at second base that stays unusually low the entire way. The ball catches the palm or thumb of his glove hand, pops up, and Chisholm recovers to make a fingertip grab on the bobble. On the broadcast you can see his stunned reaction as he turns to a fellow infielder, saying the ball almost broke his thumb and that it was 'knuckling' on him. Jomboy's read is that the ball had little or no spin, which explains why it stayed so flat and skidded the way it did.
Why This Matters
Knuckling ground balls are one of the quietest hazards infielders deal with, and they rarely get this kind of attention. A ball with no spin behaves unpredictably off the dirt, refusing to hop the way a fielder's hands expect, which is exactly why Chisholm got jammed up near his thumb. For a player who has bounced between second base and center field across his career, plays like this are a reminder that infield reps come with real physical risk on routine-looking grounders. The fact that he held on for the out instead of letting the bobble turn into an error matters in the moment. It also fits Chisholm's pattern of wearing his emotions on his face, narrating the weird stuff in real time to teammates rather than waiting for the dugout.
With 1.7M views, this clip ranks 138th out of 1,583 Jomboy breakdowns, landing in the top 8.7% of the entire catalog.
Key Moments
Who / What Is Involved
Players: Jazz Chisholm Jr.. Teams: Marlins.
Full Transcript
Click timestamps to jump to that momentHot shot to Jazz Chisum at second base.
It's off the palm of his hand or his
thumb. It bounces up and then he stays
with it for the fingertip grab and he is
stunned. Here's the live look. This ball
off the end of the bat, stays down the
whole way. Jazz like, "Whoa, you you you
saw that? That's crazy." Almost like
throwing a wad of paper into a fan. And
I've never seen a ball stay that low and
get that far. I think it had to have
crazy spin or no spin, which is kind of
what Jazz says. First, he's going to
turn to his infielder and let him know
that almost broke my thumb. And
then he's gonna say, "It was knuckling."
So, I think it had no spin. Yeah, just a
crazy play and an owie.