Jazz Chisholm’s two-run double, which sparked a three-run eighth inning, proved to be the game-winner, as the Yankees took the rubber game of their series against the Baltimore Orioles with a 4-2 victory on Sunday afternoon in the Bronx.
Trailing 2-1 in what would have been their penultimate turn at-bat, Chisholm jumped on an outside, 3-0 fastball and sent it into the right-center-field gap to easily score the tying run, Ben Rice, from third, and the go-ahead run in Paul Goldschmidt from first.
“I didn’t think he was going to throw a fastball,” Chisholm said. “If he threw a slider, I would’ve took it. He threw a fastball, it was in the zone, and I jumped on it.”
The comeback is just the second win this season for the Yankees (45-32) when they had been trailing after seven innings.
The go-ahead knock was the highlight of a busy day, especially on the basepaths, for Chisholm, who scored a pair of runs, as well. After Baltimore posted a pair of runs in the first inning off Yankees starter Will Warren, Chisholm came around to score from second on DJ LeMahieu’s second-inning single. He started with two shoes and ended with none.
Orioles left-fielder Colton Cowser’s throw forced catcher Maverick Handley up the line, forcing Chisholm — who had already lost one shoe while rounding third — to collide with the backstop with contact made near the head, forcing the other cleat to come off and Handley to leave the game. He was replaced by former Yankee Gary Sanchez.
“That’s what I live for,” Chisholm said. “That’s how I grew up playing the game in high school, Little League. That’s how I played. No need to change.”
While Warren rebounded from his shaky start — he went 6.1 innings and allowed those two runs on six hits with six strikeouts and two walks — the Yankees could generate little against Orioles starter Dean Kremer, who allowed one run on five hits with seven strikeouts in 5.2 frames.
New York was 1-for-9 with runners across the first seven innings of Sunday afternoon. With two men on and two outs in the seventh against Orioles reliever Seranthony Dominguez, Aaron Judge struck out swinging on a full-count hanging splitter down the heart of the plate.
The Orioles missed out on a prime opportunity for insurance in the eighth. After the first two men of the inning were walked by Tim Hill, Yankees reliever Fernando Cruz struck out the next three birds faced to keep the hosts down by a single run.
The Yankees finally responded by sending eight men to the plate in the bottom of the eighth, which began when Rice led off with a single and moved to second on Cody Bellinger’s groundout. Giacarlo Stanton’s laser of a single was too fast for Rice to score, to put runners at the corners for Chisholm. Stanton was replaced by Goldschmidt as a pinch-runner, a good call by manager Aaron Boone, as the veteran first baseman had just enough speed to sneak under the tag of Sanchez at the plate to put New York up 3-2.
“That’s a guy in his late-30s, that’s probably going to the Hall of Fame,” Boone said of Goldschmidt. “Probably going to the All-Star Game this year. He isn’t playing a second day in a row, and the guy’s ready to go in and pinch-run and do that. That’s freakin’ humility.”
Chisholm, who took third on the throw home in an attempt to get Goldschmidt, came into score on a LeMahieu groundout to third to give New York a two-run lead — an aggressive sprint that could have resulted in him being out had Sanchez held onto the ball. The Orioles catcher, though, was blocking the plate, which made Chisholm’s head-first slide all the more challenging.
“I didn’t know you could block the plate on an infield hit,” Chisholm said. “I’m going feet-first next time.”
“Today, we were calling him Barry Sanders with the two collisions at the plate,” Warren said of Chisholm. “He can do it all.”
