Jazz Chisholm Jr.’s two home runs lead breakout night for Yankees offense in win over Pirates

On Sunday night, Jazz Chisholm Jr. — about as publicly confident as any player in baseball — acknowledged what baseball players rarely acknowledge: “I’ve sucked all season,” he said.

Perhaps because of this admission and perhaps because he has not been hitting or acting like himself, plenty of his Yankees teammates have been in his ear. Aaron Judge, Anthony Volpe, “basically everybody,” Chisholm said, has been attempting to coax a great hitter awake not by tossing around batting tips but by throwing around compliments.

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“Sometimes they see me dragging a little bit lately,” Chisholm said Monday. “They just were like, ‘Bro, let’s not forget who you are. You’re the greatest in the world.’ ”

Feeling like the greatest in the world, he then was the greatest player in the game during a series-opening, 8-5 victory over the Pirates in front of 42,348 in The Bronx, which will be remembered for Chisholm’s two home runs and some late fireworks between the two clubs.

“He needed it,” José Caballero — whose pitch-clock strategy bothered former Yankee Dennis Santana enough to empty the benches after the eighth inning — said about Chisholm’s explosion. “We all needed it.”

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The deeply slumping Yankees had scored more than five runs in just one of their previous 27 games — a nearly unbelievable drought, the entirety without Judge and Giancarlo Stanton — but for one night, they racked up eight by the third inning and finished with 11 hits.

The catalyst was Chisholm, who had launched the go-ahead shot against the Dodgers on Sunday then made it three straight plate appearances with a homer, adding a three-run dinger in the first inning and wrapping a two-run, go-ahead shot around the foul pole in what became a four-run third.

In his walk year, Chisholm finished the opening game of Sunday’s doubleheader with a .698 OPS and 13 home runs in 93 games. A Yankees team that has many trade-deadline needs might have been talking itself into second base, too.

Two games later, he has 16 home runs and a .726 OPS.

“Three different pitches, too,” manager Aaron Boone said after Chisholm went deep off an Evan Phillips fastball, a Braxton Ashcraft curveball and an Ashcraft slider. “When he gets it rolling, he’s capable of big things, and obviously that was a big night for him and for us tonight.”

The Yankees (56-44) have won six of eight, remain 1 ½ games back of the Rays in the division and cannot exhale, but probably can breathe a bit easier than they had been a week ago.

In what you could consider only their second strong offensive performance since June 18, the Yankees had help.

The Pirates (52-49) — a decent team, we swear — looked like the Pirates of old in the first, when Paul Goldschmidt bounced a hopper to the left side that deflected off the glove of third baseman Nick Gonzales and into center field.

Ben Rice chugged from first to third and Goldschmidt hustled into second, where left fielder Bryan Reynolds intended to throw upon pouncing on the ball but then tried to halt his throw upon realizing no one was covering the base.

What followed would have worked in Spikeball, a throw that maybe traveled 2 feet and allowed Rice to score without a throw.

After a Cody Bellinger single, Chisholm smoked his first homer of the night to right for a 4-0 lead that was not safe. Ryan Weathers (4 ²/₃ innings, five runs) was not sharp and gave back the lead by the third, but Chisholm came through with yet another go-ahead shot.

After a Goldschmidt single, Chisholm got a 2-2 slider down and in, threw his barrel to the pitch and did whatever he could to keep it fair. The second baseman remained at home plate, leaned to his left and watched the ball sneak inside the foul pole and reach its destination in the second deck in right field.

That became the last meaningful swing of the night and ended the scoring, with credit due to Angel Chivilli, Brent Headrick, Tim Hill and Fernando Cruz, who combined for 4 ¹/₃ scoreless innings.

But it did not end the drama, with Santana taking offense to Caballero’s habit of milking the pitch clock as much as hitters are allowed and starting a shouting match after the end of the eighth inning.

“If you [as a pitcher] get frustrated, I’m winning,” Caballero said after he and Chisholm sparked the Yankees to a win.