Jazz Chisholm just put a target on Yankees' back, but it's the challenge they need

If you're a disappointed New York Yankees fan looking for a glimmer of hope, perhaps some energy from Jazz Chisholm Jr. can help bring you back to life. At this rate, any vocal attempt to get this team back into bonafide contention status is welcomed.

New York won their fifth straight game on Thursday night, defeating the Chicago White Sox 10-4. Chisholm went 2-for-4 with another home run and stolen base. The bats continued their onslaught since Sunday, and at 74-60, the Yankees are just a half-game back of the Red Sox for the top Wild Card spot and four games back of the Blue Jays for the AL East lead.

Anything is possible, we will admit. But most fans aren't confident, given how this team has performed when the lights were the brightest and the opponent has been fearsome. Then again, all it'll take is for this lineup to get hot at the right time. We will warn, however, this has been a flawed approach by the front office for quite some time now. The Yankees have not displayed a version of "getting hot" since 2017, and their stacked rosters ever since have fallen wildly short to varying degrees.

Last year, Chisholm gassed up the Yankees after they won the AL East and said they were going to win the World Series. That eventually got clipped by all the haters, who sat around waiting for the Yankees to lose, and they did. Chisholm put himself out there and got burned. It happens. Wasn't his fault.

We guess he doesn't have a problem with ushering in Part II of this, because on Thursday night he told reporters the Yankees are "going to go out there and win (the division) and then we're going to go win the World Series."

Jazz Chisholm Jr. says the Yankees are going to win the AL East, World Series

Love the confidence. Love the energy. But you know what that means? The Yankees have a target on their back. This quote will be hawked throughout the remainder of the year. Jays, Sox and Astros fans are salivating right now, waiting for the Yankees to trip over their shoelaces and give them an opportunity to quote-tweet this with some snarky comment they took four weeks to come up with that still isn't funny. They will drop everything they are doing to make sure they are on top of it the moment it happens — even if that means asking mom and dad for permission to leave the dinner table.

But maybe that's what the Yankees need, because every other avenue they take seems to be uninspiring. Aaron Judge as the Captain has its pros and cons, and one of the cons feels like a lack of motivation in front of the media. Judge is an excellent source for diplomatic responses. He says the right things and never puts the team in a precarious situation when it comes to headlines and overall discourse, but very rarely is he publicly lighting a fire under his teammates or sending a message to the Yankees' rivals. We get it, it's not for everybody.

Could Chisholm be that spark plug? It's not like he said anything controversial here. The Yankees have not been great this year, but they have the pieces to make a World Series run if they decide to wake up and start putting everything together. We just don't know if that's possible based on the evidence since Memorial Day weekend.

The Yankees have nothing to lose. They've already embarrassed themselves in the national spotlight more than they've made a case for a championship run — their recent four-game series against the Red Sox epitomized that. But nothing matters until October. This is a "how have you performed for me lately" league.

But there's an upcoming gauntlet on the schedule. After this White Sox series, the Yankees face the Astros, Blue Jays, Tigers and Red Sox before ending the year against the O's, Twins and White Sox again. If the Yankees want to win the division, they need to conquer that stretch — something they've yet to prove this year against fellow contending teams.

Jazz put it out there. It's up to the rest of the team to respond. Let's try and flip this around to use as a worthwhile motivational tactic because there will needs to be a defining moment for this team to wake up from its summer slump.