NEW YORK — The home run had already landed in the right-field seats, and the Yankees had their win. Then Jazz Chisholm Jr. sat down and said the last thing anyone expected from a player who had just delivered.
A reporter asked him to sum up his season to that point. He did not reach for a cliche. He did not talk around it.
He buried himself instead.
What he said next turned a night of celebration into something sharper, and it pushed a quiet piece of Yankees history almost out of view.
Chisholm crushed a go-ahead solo home run off Dodgers reliever Evan Phillips in the eighth inning Sunday, lifting the Yankees to a 2-1 win at Yankee Stadium and saving them from a doubleheader sweep. It was the kind of swing that usually defines the postgame talk. His own words defined it instead.
A go-ahead swing in a game the Yankees nearly wasted
The Yankees had spent the night squandering chances. They managed one run through seven innings, a first-inning RBI single from Cody Bellinger, and little else.
The most glaring miss came in the fifth. New York loaded the bases with nobody out and did not score, as Jasson Dominguez struck out, Chisholm popped out on the first pitch and Anthony Volpe struck out.
The lead grew fragile in the eighth. Fernando Cruz served up a game-tying, pinch-hit home run to Tommy Edman, erasing a 1-0 Yankees advantage.
Then Chisholm came up with one out and nobody on. He drove a Phillips fastball the other way for his 14th home run of the year, restoring the lead for good.
David Bednar closed it, working around a leadoff walk to Freddie Freeman in the ninth to lock down the 2-1 final.
Chisholm does not spare himself
Most players lean on the moment after a game-winner. Chisholm went the other way when a reporter asked how he would describe his season before the swing. His answer was flat and unsparing.
“It sucked. I’ve sucked all season,” Chisholm said.
Pressed on why, he did not soften it. He pointed straight at his production.
“The numbers speak for themselves,” the Yankees star added.
Even so, he framed the bigger picture around belief in the group, not himself. He argued the Yankees are good enough when they play clean baseball.
“I feel like we match up against any team in the league,” Chisholm said. “I feel like we beat ourselves a lot. I feel like that stuff, we’re going to clean up as it goes.”
Manager Aaron Boone had challenged the lineup earlier in the day after a Game 1 loss, saying the offense had to do more. He got his answer from a slumping player in a big spot, and he did not hide his approval.
“That’s a bomb right there,” the Yankees skipper said. “Big at-bat. Every win is precious.”
The milestone his words nearly hid
Lost in the bluntness was a number that ties Chisholm to a piece of Yankees history. The homer was his third this season to give the team a lead in the eighth inning or later, tied with Gavin Sheets of the Padres for the most in the majors.
No Yankee has finished a season with more since Mike Pagliarulo hit four in 1987. In a year Chisholm has spent apologizing for, his late-game timing has quietly separated him.
As a team, the Yankees now have 10 home runs in the eighth inning or later that gave them a lead, the most in MLB. Chisholm owns three of them, tied for the most by any hitter.
The clutch profile marks a sharp turn from a year ago. By one measure of late-game hitting tracked by FanGraphs, Chisholm ranked among the worst in the majors in 2025 and among the best in 2026.
A slump that still shadows the Yankees offense
The self-criticism was not empty. Chisholm entered Sunday hitting .224 with 14 home runs over 94 games, on pace for the lowest full-season batting average of his career, and he had batted just .188 across his previous 38 games.
His struggles fit a larger problem. With Aaron Judge sidelined, the Yankees have leaned on bats like Chisholm and Bellinger to carry the lineup, and both have gone cold for stretches.
The win still mattered in the standings. At 55-44, the Yankees pulled within 1.5 games of the first-place Tampa Bay Rays in the AL East, their closest margin since June 29.
Judge remains the larger question. The latest imaging showed signs of healing, but not enough for him to resume baseball activities, leaving his return uncertain with the trade deadline near.
The Yankees stay home Monday to open a series against the Pittsburgh Pirates. For one night, a player in the middle of a season he called a failure decided the game, then made sure no one mistook the swing for a turnaround.
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