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

Jazz Chisholm Jr.was speaking for himself Sunday when a player who always says what’s on his mind acknowledged, “I’ve sucked all season.”Yet he could have been talking about the entire Yankees lineup, which stopped hitting altogether right about the time Aaron Judge stopped playing.

Join Post Sports+ for exciting subscriber-only features, including real-time texting with Greg Joyce about the inside buzz on the Yankees.A night later, both Chisholm and the supporting cast around him did less sucking, more feasting on the Pirates pitching and defense and even a little bit of fighting.Led by a pair of homers from Chisholm, the Yankees broke out in the kind of offensive performance that has been nearly nonexistent in the post-Judge days with an 8-5 series-opening victory that briefly got tense late in front of 42,348 on Monday night in The Bronx.The deeply slumping Yankees had scored more than five runs in only 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 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.The catalysts for the extracurriculars were José Caballero and former Yankee Dennis Santana, who fielded a comebacker from Caballero and began a frame-ending double play in the bottom of the eighth.The two jawed at each other, prompting the benches and dugouts to empty, but seemingly only words were exchanged.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 ha...