NEW YORK — Jazz Chisholm Jr. snapped an early-season lull by donning oversized teammates’ trousers and using a different bat, launching a tiebreaking two-run homer in the seventh inning as the New York Yankees beat the Toronto Blue Jays 7-6 on Monday night.
Chisholm, an All-Star a season ago who finished with 31 homers, 80 RBIs and 31 stolen bases, had not homered this year until April 23 and saw his batting average fall to .200 on a recent trip to Baltimore. The homer against Toronto lifted his average to .237.
The second baseman said he began borrowing looser uniform pants to change his luck. Listed at 5-foot-11 and 184 pounds, Chisholm had worn pants belonging to 221-pound teammate Trent Grisham, then switched to the much larger trousers of 6-foot-6, 245-pound Giancarlo Stanton after he could not find Grisham’s pair in Baltimore. Chisholm doubled the day he first wore Stanton’s pants and went 7-for-12 wearing them during a Subway Series at Citi Field.
Chisholm also changed bats, trading his Chandler model for a 34-inch, 31-ounce Victus used by injured infielder Jose Caballero, who is on the injured list with a broken finger. Chisholm said teammates and fans have reacted positively: “My teammates love ’em,” he said. Teammate Cody Bellinger said, “Jazz has so much swag. He can really kind of pull off anything.” Equipment manager Rob Cucuzza is leaving the Stanton trousers with Chisholm, who joked, “They have my name on them now.”
Manager Aaron Boone said Chisholm had been “missing pitches that he usually hits,” and that the player is now “coming to its level a little bit.” In the seventh, after Aaron Judge singled and Bellinger delivered a tying two-run homer, Chisholm sliced a slider down the left-field line for the go-ahead shot. Reliever David Bednar held on in the ninth, striking out George Springer and getting Vladimir Guerrero Jr. on a grounder to Chisholm to end the game.
