CINCINNATI — Jazz Chisholm Jr. was seeing red Tuesday night, which Jose Trevino may have had something to do with.
By Wednesday, the only red in Chisholm’s sight was the color of the right field seats where his moonshot of a two-run homer was landing. And of course, his trip around the bases brought him right past Trevino, when the Yankees third baseman got the last laugh with his former teammate.
A night after getting ejected in the ninth inning, Chisholm let his bat do the talking, with his two-run shot keying a 7-1 win over the Reds to avoid a sweep at Great American Ballpark.
Max Fried was terrific again, tossing seven innings of one-run ball while helping the Yankees (46-34) win for the fourth time in their past 13 games and maintain a one-game lead over the Rays atop the AL East.
Chisholm was not available for the final two and a half innings of Tuesday’s 11-inning loss after getting ejected in the ninth. He had been upset about a called strike against him in the top of the ninth and then was still talking (he claimed) to himself at third base while taking grounders when he looked up and saw home plate umpire Mark Wegner staring at him.
Chisholm asked Wegner why he was looking at him, which was apparently enough to get him tossed.
Before Wednesday’s game, manager Aaron Boone indicated — perhaps slightly tongue in cheek — that Trevino “contributed to the ejection” by getting Wegner to look at Chisholm. Video later surfaced via the YES Network that showed Trevino, who had come out on deck, appearing to tip off Wegner in Chisholm’s direction.
So when Chisholm clobbered his 11th homer of the season in the third inning, he flipped his bat and took a nice trot around the bases. Then when he crossed home plate, he appeared to say something to Trevino, with both smiling about it, as he put the Yankees ahead 3-0.
Before Chisholm went deep, through the first two innings, the Yankees’ mistakes from the past two nights — nearly the past two weeks, really — looked to be haunting them again.
They had put six runners on base, only one of which came in to score — on Trent Grisham’s RBI single — while going 1-for-8 with two walks and six strikeouts with runners in scoring position.
The Yankees finished the night 4-for-22 with runners in scoring position — making it 5-for-43 in the three-game series — but this time they did enough to salvage the win.
Jasson Domínguez, who doubled and came around to score in the second inning, enjoyed a four-hit night, with two of his hits coming from his weaker right side.
Chisholm did have a throwing error in the fourth inning that allowed the only Reds run of the night to score off Fried.
But the Yankees got the run back in the top of the fifth with a slight adventure. Ben Rice was on third when Anthony Volpe hit a fly ball to center. Rice tagged up, took a few steps toward home and then went back to the bag — seemingly thinking he had left early — before racing home again.
A nonchalant Elly De La Cruz caught the cutoff at shortstop and was late to throw home, allowing Rice to dive in safely.
Aaron Judge made it a 5-1 game in the sixth when he roped an RBI double down the line.
