Jazz Chisholm Jr.’s helmet flew off of his head as he hurtled toward home plate.
Austin Wells had just lined a two-out single against Boston Red Sox reliever Garrett Whitlock in the eighth inning of Wild Card Game 2, and Chisholm was not going to be denied.
Chisholm scored from first base, beating the throw from right field with a head-first slide.
That proved to be the winning run in the Yankees’ 4-3 victory on Wednesday night in the Bronx, staving off elimination and forcing a winner-take-all Game 3.
“Any ball that an outfielder moves to his left or right [for], I have to score,” Chisholm said. “That’s all I was thinking.”
The rapid sequence broke a 3-3 tie. Chisholm had reached on a two-out walk, and he was running on Whitlock’s full-count offering to Wells, who pulled a changeup just inside the right-field line.
“Moving on the pitch gave [Chisholm] a little bit of a head start there, and his speed comes into play big time there,” manager Aaron Boone said. “Obviously, an exciting, big play.”
The go-ahead run capped a whirlwind 24 hours for the lefty-swinging Chisholm, who didn’t start in Tuesday night’s Game 1 — a 3-1 Yankees loss — because Boone opted to go with a righty-heavy lineup against left-hander Garrett Crochet.
Chisholm acknowledged he was surprised by that decision, and he conducted the bulk of Tuesday night’s postgame scrum facing his locker, with his back turned to the media.
But Chisholm said he’d gotten over his frustrations long before Game 2, playing the video game “MLB: The Show” — and winning via mercy rule against an online opponent — as a way of cooling off.
“There is never a problem between me and Aaron Boone,” Chisholm said. “He’s been my manager all year, and I’ve stood behind him all year. We always have disagreements. … But at the end of the day, I always stand with Boonie, because he always understands where I come from. He knows I am a passionate player. He knows I wear my feelings on my sleeve.”
Chisholm stepped up with the Yankees needing a victory to stay alive in the best-of-three playoff series. The second baseman also factored prominently into a seventh inning in which the Yankees escaped a major jam.
With the score tied 3-3, the Red Sox turned to Game 1 hero Masataka Yoshida to pinch-hit against reliever Fernando Cruz with runners on first and second and two outs.
Yoshida lined a hot shot up the middle, but Chisholm made a diving stop to prevent the ball from reaching center field, saving at least one run.
“You see a ground ball, you’ve got to stop it,” Chisholm said. “You have to keep it in the infield. You have to stop that run from scoring.”
That held Yoshida to an infield single, which loaded the bases, and Cruz ended the threat by getting Trevor Story to fly out to the center-field warning track.
An ecstatic Cruz slapped his chest and unleashed a guttural scream on his way back to the Yankees’ dugout.
“I can’t tell you how excited he is to put this uniform on every single day and what a privilege it is for him,” Boone said of Cruz, a childhood Yankee fan. “He exudes that all of the time. There’s a passion that he does his job with, and it spilled over a little bit tonight.”
Cruz had replaced Yankees starter Carlos Rodón, who held Boston to three runs in 6+ innings but left in the seventh with two runners on and nobody out.
“[It was] definitely a battle,” Rodón said. “They strung some good at-bats together, but defensively we had some great turns. Cruz picked me up there.”
All of that followed a start by Red Sox right-hander Brayan Bello that lasted only 2.1 innings.
Bello surrendered a two-run home run to Ben Rice — who also didn’t start in Game 1 — in the first inning, then put two runners on base in the bottom of the third.
Manager Alex Cora then removed Bello.
The aggressive move paid off in the immediacy, as left-handed reliever Justin Wilson retired the lefty-swinging Cody Bellinger and Rice without a run scoring. But it left the Red Sox’s bullpen in need of 18 more outs.
“It was a tough lineup. A lot of lefties,” Cora said. “The at-bats were getting better with the lefties, and we had a bunch of them in the bullpen. Felt like at that point kind of like we have to do this.”
Bello entered Wednesday with a 2.35 ERA in 11 career starts against the Yankees. He was 2-1 with a 1.89 ERA in three starts against them this year, including hurling seven scoreless innings in the Bronx on Aug. 22.
“To knock out a guy like Bello, who’s kind of had our number over the years, was huge, and then it’s kind of a bullpen game after that,” said Aaron Judge, who went 2-for-4 with an RBI single.
The Wild Card series now comes down to Game 3 on Thursday night in the Bronx. The Yankees will turn to rookie right-hander Cam Schlittler, who went 4-3 with a 2.96 ERA in 14 starts.
The Red Sox are rolling with a rookie of their own, with 23-year-old left-hander Connelly Early set to start because Lucas Giolito is off the roster with an elbow injury. Early made his MLB debut less than a month ago and pitched to a 2.33 ERA and 29 strikeouts in 19.1 innings over four starts.
To advance to the ALDS, the Yankees will have to make history. Since MLB introduced the best-of-three format for the Wild Card round in 2022, no team has lost Game 1 and gone on to win the series.
“It has been two great games,” Boone said. “I think both sides have played really well. Been a lot of impactful plays, whether it is on the bases, in the field. So look forward to tomorrow and try and move on.”