The Jazz Chisholm Jr. Show almost always delivers — and in Tuesday’s dramatic season-saving 9-6 win in Game 3 of the ALDS, the second baseman showed a little bit of everything.
His night got off to a bad start when he pitched home slowly after a poor relay in the top of the third, putting the Yankees’ season in serious jeopardy.
But just two innings later, Chisholm’s bat helped make up for his mistake, as he put the Yankees ahead for the first time with a solo homer with one out in the bottom of the fifth – complete with his signature bat flip.
It came after the Yankees got back into the game with two runs in the bottom of the third and then tied the game in the fourth with Aaron Judge’s dramatic three-run homer off the left-field foul pole.
With the momentum back on the Yankees’ side on a wild night in The Bronx, Chisholm turned on a 90-mph four-seamer from Louis Varland and sent him 400 feet into the right-center seats to make it 7-6.
“All I was thinking is, ‘We’ve got to win this game,’” Chisholm said of what he was thinking as he walked the bases.
And the Yankees never looked back.
The scenario was hard to imagine earlier in the game, with Carlos Rodón struggling from the start and the Yankees defense failing to help him in the Blue Jays’ four-run fourth down.
Cody Bellinger nearly made a sliding catch on Daulton Varsho’s catch to left-center, but with Davis Schneider at second and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. on the first, the ball popped off his glove.
Schneider nearly slipped on third, but Trent Grisham, after collecting the ball, threw to Chisholm on second and with Chisholm slow to react to the play, Schneider hurried home.
Ernie Clement followed with an RBI single to left and Anthony Santander a two-run hit to right that gave Toronto a five-run lead.
But instead of another lopsided loss, the Yankees stormed back and the limit was reached by Chisholm, who entered Tuesday just 3-for-16 with no extra base hits and four strikeouts in his five previous games this postseason.
He insisted he was not surprised by the comeback.
“It’s happened to us before, so why can’t it happen to them?” Chisholm said, referring to the Yankees blowing Game 5 of the World Series to the Dodgers after building a five-run lead early in the game.
And he also credited the two dumb streakers who ran onto the court during the top of the fourth with helping turn the tide.
“Maybe it was the streakers that changed the momentum,” Chisholm said with a smile, as the Yankees scored three runs in the bottom of the inning.
He could afford to be in good spirits as his postseason has seemingly turned around after it started with Chisholm not even in the starting lineup for their Game 1 loss to the Red Sox with left-hander Garrett Crochet on the mound.
After that game, the typically loquacious Chisholm spent much of a postgame interview with his back to reporters, saying of Aaron Boone’s decision to go right-handed against Crochet, “We gotta do what we gotta do to win, right? That’s how I look at it.”
He came back with two hits in the Game 3 clincher against Boston in The Bronx before the ALDS got off to a slow start.
And then he delivered the second-biggest home run of the playoffs for the Yankees as they extended the streak with an impressive comeback – and two more wins to go if they want to finish off the Blue Jays and return to the ALCS.
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