Red Sox’s Aroldis Chapman avoids another playoff blowup

Aroldis Chapman carries an excellent October résumé that nonetheless contains enormous blemishes, which underscore just how long the 37-year-old has been around. 

In pinstripes, there was the infamous, walk-off home run surrendered to Jose Altuve in Game 6 of the 2019 ALCS. There was the eighth-inning home run slugged by the Rays’ Mike Brosseau that largely cost the Yankees the 2020 ALDS. With the Cubs, there was the game-tying home run served up to Rajai Davis in Game 7 of the 2016 World Series. 

So as the Yankees loaded the bases without an out in Tuesday’s ninth inning and a sellout crowd of 47,027, nearly all of them Yankees fans, created the loudest buzz of the evening, the big and strong lefty might have had flashbacks. 

If so, he was not about to acknowledge them. 

“Just try to calm myself down, try to execute pitch by pitch,” Chapman said through an interpreter after putting the Yankees away in a 3-1 Red Sox win in Game 1 of their wild-card series. “That was my mentality.” 

The best Yankees rally of the night was their last one. Silenced by Garrett Crochet for 7 ²/₃ innings and Chapman, who recorded the final out of the eighth, the Yankees did what nearly no one could do against Chapman this season: strung hits together. 

Among pitchers who logged at least 50 innings this season, Chapman’s .131 batting average against was the best in the game. And yet Paul Goldschmidt, Aaron Judge and Cody Bellinger stacked three straight singles that loaded the bases and put the tying run on second. As Giancarlo Stanton stepped to the plate, Yankee Stadium might have reached its highest decibel level. 

“In that moment, you don’t hear anything. You don’t see anything,” Chapman said. “You just kind of 100 percent focus on your catcher and the next pitch.” 

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Perhaps Stanton did not see much, either, fouling off a couple triple-digit fastballs before swinging through a splitter. Jazz Chisholm Jr. followed with a shallow fly out to right field that did not score a run. 

The Yankees’ momentum just about gone, Trent Grisham then whiffed on a 101.2 mph four-seamer. 

Chapman, somehow still among the game’s most overwhelming pitchers, glared into his own dugout and pounded his chest. 

A player who had a roller-coaster career with the Yankees, which ended with his no-showing a workout in 2022 that led to his being held off the playoff roster, said there was no extra motivation or satisfaction in putting away his former team. 

“The past is the past,” Chapman said. “Just happy to be able to close out the game.” 

The Yankees are hoping that forcing the best Red Sox bullpen arm to throw 24 pitches will help. 

“I like us getting a little chance to see Chapman there,” Judge said. “We’ll see him over the next two days, that’s for sure.”