Royals fans are positively gleeful amid Jazz Chisholm’s early struggles with Yankees

Ever since the 2024 ALDS, the Kansas City Royals have built up quite the bad-blood rivalry with the New York Yankees. At the center of it all has been their public enemy number one in Jazz Chisholm Jr. following some antics and comments made in recent seasons, primarily centered around a feud with Royals star third baseman Maikel Garcia.

Stemming from a hard Garcia slide in that aforementioned 2024 ALDS series and then a hard tag he received from Garcia in a regular season game the following year, Chisholm has adopted a “villain” role in the eyes of Royals fans. Because of that, as Chisholm struggles on the field to start the 2026 season, fans have been elated with his poor form.

To say that Jazz is struggling to start the season is an understatement. Chisholm has looked positively dreadful with the Yankees through his first 16 games. Through 65 plate appearances, the flashy second baseman has looked as dull as ever, slashing .180/.231/.262 with just three RBI, a near 30% K-rate and a measly 41 wRC+.

Jazz Chisholm’s struggles make Maikel Garcia’s hot start even sweeter

While there may be bad blood in general between these two squads, again, it primarily lies between Chisholm and Garcia. And as Royals fans are well aware of right now, Garcia has been on a tear to start the new campaign.

To make things a little sweeter for the Royals’ fanbase, Garcia is doing all of this fresh of signing a brand new multi-year extension with the Royals this winter. Chisholm on the other hand is already behind the eight-ball in an all-important contract year of all years.

Adopting an all-new leadoff role this season, Garcia has been the Royals’ best full-time position player by far in 2026. Of all the major statistical metrics, Garcia is either atop the KC leaderboards or at the very least within the top three among all Royals qualified hitters.

On top of this, Garcia has continued to look every bit the defender that earned his first career Gold Glove last season. In just 16 games, he’s accumulated 3 DRS, 4 OAA and a 3 FRV. Garcia can simply do no wrong so far this season.

After countlessly being overlooked by the baseball world in general in recent months and being overlooked for Chisholm in certain instances as well, such as for the 2026 All-Star Game, it’s nice to see the Royals budding star get a win over his rival.

And the two of them will have an opportunity to write the next chapter in their rivalry in just a few days time when the Royals head to the Bronx for a three-game weekend road series against the Yankees starting on Friday.