The Jazz Chisholm Jr. Show almost always provides — and in Tuesday’s dramatic season-saving 9-6 win in Game 3 of the ALDS, the second baseman showed a bit of everything.
His night got off to a poor start when he was slow to throw home on a bad relay in the top of the third that put the Yankees’ season in serious peril.
But just two innings later, Chisholm’s bat helped make up for his mistake, as he gave the Yankees the lead 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 in 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 99 mph four-seamer from Louis Varland and sent it 409 feet into the seats in right-center 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 rounded the bases.
And the Yankees never looked back.
The scenario was hard to envision earlier in the game, with Carlos Rodón struggling from the outset and the Yankees’ defense not helping him in the four-run Blue Jays fourth.
Cody Bellinger almost made a sliding catch on Daulton Varsho’s fly ball to left-center, but with Davis Schneider on second and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. on first, the ball popped off his glove.
Schneider slipped near third, but Trent Grisham, after collecting the ball, threw to Chisholm at second and with Chisholm slow to react on the play, Schneider hustled 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 it was capped 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 wasn’t surprised by the comeback.
“It happened to us before, so why couldn’t it happen to them?” Chisholm said, referencing 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 dimwitted streakers that ran onto the field during the top of the fourth with helping turn the tide.
“It might have been the streakers that changed the momentum,” Chisholm said with a smile, since 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 lefty Garrett Crochet on the mound.
After that game, the typically chatty Chisholm spent much of a postgame interview with his back to reporters saying of Aaron Boone’s decision to go right-handed heavy against Crochet, “We’ve got to do whatever we’ve got to 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 a slow start to the ALDS.
And then he delivered the second-biggest homer of the playoffs for the Yankees, as they extended the series with an impressive comeback — and still two more wins to go if they want to finish off the Blue Jays and get back to the ALCS.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
