Yankees' Jazz Chisholm Jr. comes up short but enjoys Home Run Derby experience

ATLANTA -- Jazz Chisholm Jr. didn’t let the fences get in the way of his good time during Monday night’s Home Run Derby.

Chisholm reached the Truist Park seats only three times on a total of 37 swings, the fewest homers in the first round since Troy Tulowitzki and Adam Jones both swatted three in the 2014 Derby at Target Field, following a much different format. In 2009, Brandon Inge had zero in 10 swings at Busch Stadium.

Not surprisingly, it was Cal Raleigh, the Mariners’ catcher with an MLB-best 38 homers at the break, who wound up Monday’s winner, out-slugging the Rays’ Junior Caminero, 18-15, in the final round.

“I enjoyed every second,” said Chisholm, who hit 17 homers in the first half, including 10 over his last 35 games before the break. “Even after I was done, and my arms were hanging, I was like, Oh, this is amazing.”

A big reason for Chisholm’s exuberance, despite the power outage, was the opportunity to have his stepfather, Geron Sands, pitch to him for the competition. Chisholm said Sands had been throwing him BP since he was a kid, and the chance to reunite on that stage overshadowed anything that happened once making contact.

“I had that full circle moment in my head during the round, you know?” Chisholm said. “With like a minute and a half left, right before my time out, I smiled to myself and I was like, dang, we’re actually doing this right now. We’re actually hitting in a home run derby and he’s actually throwing to me. After that, my mind really just cleared to like, bro, we’re having fun and enjoying this.”

Chisholm hit only one homer, his longest at 453 feet, before calling time at the 1:25 mark, which is when teammates Aaron Judge and Max Fried came over for a pep talk. After toweling off, Chisholm went deep twice more, then was glad to finish up without hurting himself. Last month, Chisholm described playing at 70% since returning from the oblique strain that landed him on the IL, but he caught himself Monday turning up the dial a notch during the derby.

“Some of the (swings) got up,” Chisholm said. “I saw a ball up and I thought I was gonna be late on it, so I gotta put a little bit of extra in it.”

The Yankees are probably relieved to know that Chisholm not only emerged healthy, but didn’t get too carried away when he wasn’t clearing the walls. They’re going to want back the same guy who was hitting .307 with a .985 OPS since coming off the IL.

“It’s not that I wasn’t trying to hit homers,” Chisholm said. “I was trying to keep my swing and hit homers instead of just trying to hit everything in the air. I was trying to keep my line-drive swing and hit homers. But, you know, it gets better.”

How did Chisholm’s three-homer performance match up to the rest of the first-round sluggers? The next fewest was Matt Olson with 15.

Before the derby, Judge was a big believer in Chisholm, figuring he had the right attitude for the event. “He loves the stage,” said Judge, the 2017 winner.

When it was over, however, Chisholm loved the idea of a nap.

“I’m going straight to sleep,” he said. “I’m really tired.”

By David Lennon

dave.lennon@newsday.comDPLennon

David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.