Jazz Chisholm Jr. Swats Dodgers, Saves Yankees From the Sweep Platter
The Yankees had already been chewed up and spit out once on Sunday. Yoshinobu Yamamoto threw a complete game in the opener of the doubleheader, and the Dodgers were circling like they wanted the whole plate. Then Sunday night happened, and Jazz Chisholm Jr. decided he’d had enough of being the main course.
New York beat Los Angeles 2-1, avoiding a three-game sweep that would’ve left a mark the size of a tire iron across the Bronx. The Yankees are 55-44, sitting 1.5 games behind the Rays for the AL East lead, and they needed this one the way a 340-pound man needs a recliner after Thanksgiving.
Here’s how it cooked. The Yankees scratched out a run in the first — Paul Goldschmidt doubled, Cody Bellinger singled him home, and that 1-0 lead sat there like a single chicken wing on a party tray. Should’ve been more. New York stranded nine baserunners through seven innings, including bases loaded with nobody out in the fifth. Nine runners left on base. That’s leaving the whole rotisserie chicken on the counter and going home hungry.
The Dodgers finally broke through in the eighth when Tommy Edman took a Fernando Cruz splitter deep to tie it 1-1. Two runners still on, David Bednar came in to put out the fire and got the last two outs. Then came the bottom of the eighth.
One out, nobody on, Evan Phillips on the mound for Los Angeles. Chisholm got a fastball and sent it the other way — opposite field, gone. His 14th of the year, and the kind of swing that makes a man forget he entered the season talking about going 50-50 and spent two months looking like he’d left his power in the taxi from the airport.
That homer was Chisholm’s third go-ahead shot in the eighth inning or later this season, tying him with San Diego’s Gavin Sheets for the MLB lead. The Yankees haven’t had a player with more than three in a single season since 1987. That’s back when stadiums served beer for three bucks and nobody needed a spreadsheet to tell them a clutch hit mattered.
Before the heroics at the plate, Chisholm made the defensive play that ended the top of the eighth — a catch in right field where his hat flew off his head and he barely hung onto the ball. Picture a guy making a one-handed grab at a buffet tray while his toupee lands in the dip. He held on. That’s the play that doesn’t show up in the analytics department’s PowerPoint but keeps you from getting swept at home.
Bednar handled the ninth with the meat of the Dodgers’ order staring at him. Freddie Freeman worked a ten-pitch walk. Bednar struck out Mookie Betts swinging on a splitter, got Kyle Tucker on a fielder’s choice groundout, and Edman flied out to shallow left. Ballgame. Bednar’s 19th save.
This is a Yankees team still missing Aaron Judge, still waiting for Chisholm’s season to look like what he promised in spring. But on a Sunday night when the alternative was a broom in the Bronx, Chisholm delivered the one thing nobody on either bench could cook up — the run that stood up.
The Yankees continue their homestand Monday night against the Pittsburgh Pirates, with Ryan Weathers scheduled to face Braxton Ashcraft.
Sources
- Yahoo Sports — Jazz Chisholm Jr. hits clutch solo homer, lifts Yankees to 2-1 win over Dodgers
- Yahoo Sports / Sporting News — Yankees’ Jazz Chisholm takes surprising MLB lead with heroic home run