Yankees Erupt for Eight, Chisholm and Grisham Bury Toronto
The Yankees turned a tied game into a rout with a five-run sixth inning, beating Toronto 8-3 on August 23. Jazz Chisholm Jr. and Trent Grisham each went deep, and New York's offense did its most damaging work precisely when the Blue Jays needed a stop.
New York wasted no time. Spencer Jones doubled to center in the second inning to score George Lombard Jr., and moments later a Wells double to right plated Jones — Yankees up 2-0 before Toronto had settled in. The Blue Jays clawed back methodically: a Bateman sacrifice fly in the third made it 2-1, and a Cameron sacrifice fly in the fourth tied the game at two. For a stretch, it looked like Jose Soriano might be steadying himself despite the early damage.
He wasn't. The sixth inning is where this game was decided. With the bases loaded, Grisham drew a walk that scored Lombard Jr. and pushed New York back in front 3-2 — and that single play swung the home win probability from 70% to 84%, a 14-point lurch that effectively ended Toronto's realistic path to a comeback. Ben Rice then singled to right, scoring both Chisholm Jr. and Jones to make it 5-2. Soriano finished with a line of 5.0 innings, 7 hits, 5 earned runs, 3 walks, and 7 strikeouts — the strikeout total flatters what was otherwise a rough outing. The story of the night was New York's ability to string together damage in bunches rather than in isolated moments.
Chisholm Jr. put the game fully out of reach in the seventh, launching a 364-foot home run to right that scored Bellinger and pushed the lead to 7-2. Grisham added an exclamation point in the eighth — a 413-foot shot to center — his second contribution of the night after the walk that cracked the game open. Toronto got a consolation run when Alejandro Kirk singled to center to score Straw in the eighth, but the final was 8-3 and it wasn't particularly close by then. On the pitching side, Paul Blackburn threw two perfect innings of relief — 2.0 IP, no hits, no runs, no walks — which looks like exactly the kind of quiet, efficient work a bullpen needs after a starter exits early. New York's offense spread the damage across multiple contributors: Jones went 2-for-3 with an RBI and two runs, Lombard Jr. went 2-for-4 and scored twice, and Rice's 2-for-5 night with 2 RBI was the quietest big performance of the bunch. This was a complete, professional dismantling.