CLEVELAND -- It didn’t take long for the “overrated” chants to rain down on Jazz Chisholm Jr. when he stepped up to the plate in the fifth inning of the Yankees’ game against the Guardians on Tuesday night.
The chants came early and often from a raucous “tarps off” section that had formed in the upper deck down Progressive Field’s third-base line.
And in that instance, the tarps off folks won, as Chisholm struck out on a fastball from Slade Cecconi -- a pitch that he admitted he overswung on because he was trying to hit it out.
But little did those fans know that the chant would help unlock Chisholm, who retreated back to the Yankees’ dugout and decided he would use Aaron Judge’s slightly heavier bat during his next at-bat.
“I swung above a high fastball, that never happens,” Chisholm said.
And that bat helped Chisholm get his lick back three innings later with a towering Statcast-projected 360-foot go-ahead home run off Guardians reliever Tim Herrin that helped push the Yankees to a 3-2 win.
“I love it,” Chisholm said. “I feel like those were the loudest chants we heard. It was great.”
Manager Aaron Boone also said he heard the chants from the Yankees’ first-base dugout.
“It made it even better,” Boone said with a smile.
That homer marked the second time Chisholm has hit a homer with one of Judge’s bats in the past three days.
Chisholm’s bat switch came at a unique time. While his season hasn’t been up to his standard, he entered Sunday’s game against the Red Sox (the first occasion of him hitting a homer with Judge’s bat) with a .309/.368/.529 slash line with three home runs and eight RBIs in his previous 18 games.
Most of the time, such a change comes when a player is scuffling, but Chisholm elected to make the change in the midst of his best stretch of the season.
But Chisholm had previously been 0-for-6 with two walks against the Guardians this series prior to launching his homer.
Chisholm hasn’t shied away from the big moment during his Yankees tenure, and Tuesday’s homer was another example of that.
After he launched the ball, Chisholm stood at home plate admiring the blast before taking nearly 32 seconds to complete his home run trot.
“That fuels me,” Chisholm said when asked about the chants. “That trot was really for the fans.”
Herrin is the Guardians’ lefty specialist, and manager Stephen Vogt elected to send him out in the eighth to deal with Chisholm after Herrin tossed a scoreless seventh inning, and it took Chisholm seven pitches to make that decision look like a mistake.
"Tie game like that, we can't just empty the ‘pen -- especially when we emptied it last night,” Vogt said. “Timmy was really efficient that first inning, so he was going back out for two more hitters. Just hung a 3-2 slider."
Herrin got Chisholm down 0-2, starting the at-bat with five straight sliders before mixing in a fastball that Chisholm took for ball 3. Herrin then went back to the slider well one too many times, throwing one that caught too much of the plate that Chisholm was able to turn around and send out of the park.
“I swung at the first slider and realized that it was going to be a tough pitch, so I was waiting for a pitch that was going to start right at me,” Chisholm said. “I got one and handled it. He’s a good pitcher, and he doesn’t really miss his spots.”
When Boone was asked about Chisholm using Judge’s bat prior to the Yankees’ 7-5 win on Monday, he dismissed it as a non-story.
He might have to change his tune thanks to Chisholm’s latest homer, which came with a home run celebration that ranks among Chisholm’s finest.
“Those I like,” Boone said.