On a day when the New York Yankees were dealt awful news when Jazz Chisholm’s MRI results came back with an inconclusive UCL injury, Juan Soto breathed life back into their offense (even when nobody else could).

In the top of the seventh inning, Soto took a 3-2 pitch from White Sox left-hander Fraser Ellard deep and gone into right field for his first home run of the game … to that side of the ballpark.

Previously, he’d drilled two opposite-field shots in the third and fifth innings, a feat that he’s now accomplished four separate times in the same game.

He’d never reached three in one contest before, though, until Tuesday night. It’s very difficult to hit a trio of home runs in a 4-0 ballgame, but Soto spent the middle game of this series making repeated statements emphasizing his value to this Yankees team, stuck in scuffle mode recently (or, more generously, a “roller coaster).

Yankees star Juan Soto drills three home runs vs. Chicago White Sox

In a wide open American League, this deeply imperfect Yankees team will contend for a playoff spot and beyond. Occasionally, with very few clubs distinguishing themselves, a player like Soto might just be the difference in a tight game, all by himself.

On Monday night, the moribund White Sox drubbed the Yankees 12-2 for their largest margin of victory on the season. That meant, regardless of how numb to it Alex Verdugo sounded in Monday’s postgame, the Yankees would be required to respond with some degree of force.

Did the lineup punch back behind Nestor Cortes? Not so much. But Juan Soto did. Again. And again. And then one more time.

Hopefully, for the Yankees’ sake, this performance served as the thesis statement of the essay that Hal Steinbrenner should already have memorized, as it scrolls across his eyelids: Pay the man. He means a lot to you.