The New York Yankees needed something in the eighth inning on Sunday. Aaron Judge was watching from the dugout in street clothes, sidelined with a stress fracture. Giancarlo Stanton was already on the injured list. The lineup was thinner than anyone would like, and the game needed a spark.
Jazz Chisholm Jr. had struck out in each of his first three at-bats. Not exactly the afternoon he had in mind.
Then he went digging through Judge’s bat bag.
Chisholm Explains the Method Behind the Home Run
GettyJazz Chisholm Jr. of the New York Yankees.
What followed was a three-run homer off Red Sox lefty reliever Joe La Sorsa that put New York’s 6-1 win firmly out of reach. But the story behind the swing was almost as good as the swing itself.
Chisholm has a complicated history with Judge’s bat. The last time he used it in a regular-season game before Sunday, he strained his oblique. He tried it again in spring training and said he almost tore it again because he swung it with the same force he uses with his own lighter bat. Judge’s bat is 35 inches and around 33 and a half ounces. Chisholm’s own bat is 34 inches and 31 ounces.
The difference in weight demands a completely different approach at the plate.
“I feel like when I pick up his bat, I know I can’t swing as hard as I can, or else I’ll tear an oblique like last year,” Chisholm said. “But I feel like it just helps me to go out there and control the barrel and just try to touch the ball instead of trying to hit it so hard.”
That adjustment, born entirely out of self-preservation, turned a struggling afternoon at the plate into the Yankees’ biggest hit of the game.
The Full Picture
The bat was only part of the story. Chisholm also stepped into the eighth inning wearing Stanton‘s pants, a slump-busting tradition that started earlier this season and has since stuck. So with the Yankees missing both of their biggest power hitters, their second baseman was quite literally wearing one injured slugger’s pants and swinging the other’s bat.
Chisholm acknowledged the first three at-bats had not gone the way he wanted, which is what pushed him toward the change.
“I was swinging and missing when I thought I was hitting the ball,” he said. “So I was just seeing if the bat would change things. Sometimes you need a little bit more weight and a little bit less on your swing.”
Manager Aaron Boone had a simple reaction when asked about it afterward.
“I like when he does that,” Boone said with a smile.
What It Means for the Yankees
GettyNew York Yankees’ Aaron Boone.
Sunday’s win was exactly what New York needed. The Yankees beat the Red Sox 6-1, continuing a stretch of play that has kept them afloat despite the absences of Judge and Stanton. The offense has found ways to produce through different contributors on different nights, and Chisholm has been at the center of some of the best moments.
Paul Goldschmidt and Cody Bellinger also contributed in the win, with Bellinger’s homer sparking the late rally that put the game away. The Yankees are finding ways to win without their captain.
Final Word for the Yankees
Jazz Chisholm is one of the most entertaining players in baseball, and Sunday was a perfect example of why. A struggling afternoon at the plate, a rummage through his injured captain’s bat bag, and a three-run homer that sealed the win.
He could not swing it as hard as he wanted. Turns out that was the point.
Judge will be back eventually. Until then, his bat is apparently available.
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