Jazz Chisholm Jr. homers twice as Yankees beat Pirates after benches clear

Jazz Chisholm Jr. homered twice and drove in five runs as the Yankees beat the Pittsburgh Pirates 8-5 at Yankee Stadium, giving New York a win shaped as much by one bat as by the final score. Chisholm finished 2-for-4 and delivered the kind of night that can flip a game before the other dugout has time to settle in.

His power came in consecutive at-bats against Pirates right-hander Braxton Ashcraft, whom ESPN and Reuters identified as an All-Star. The two blasts supplied the loudest moments of the night and helped the Yankees build the cushion they needed before Pittsburgh tried to push back. Reuters described the performance as part of one of the Yankees’ better home showings of late, a useful sign for a club trying to turn individual production into steadier momentum.

The game’s temperature rose in the eighth inning, when Pirates reliever Dennis Santana took exception to José Caballero’s pitch-clock-related routine in the batter’s box. MLB said the benches cleared at the end of the inning after Santana reacted to Caballero’s plate appearance, and The Athletic reported that no punches were thrown. The dust-up drew both benches and bullpens onto the field, adding a brief burst of tension to a game that had already been moving with some edge.

Even with the confrontation, Chisholm’s night remained the defining line on the box score. His two home runs and five RBIs swung both the scoreboard and the emotional tone in the Bronx, turning a midseason game into a showcase of how quickly the Yankees can overwhelm an opponent when a middle-of-the-order hitter is locked in. Pittsburgh never fully recovered from the combination of Chisholm’s power and New York’s late-game control, while the Yankees left with an 8-5 win that felt bigger than a single regular-season result.