Boston Red Sox manager Alex Cora took a cautionary trip to the mound to check on closer Aroldis Chapman midway through the ninth inning of the team’s 3-1 win over the Atlanta Braves on Sunday afternoon.
Chapman got ahead of Braves second baseman Ozzie Albies with an 0-1 count and drew a grounder to shortstop to record the first out of the frame. But when Sean Murphy followed up with his trip to the plate and hit a deep foul ball down the left field line, Chapman made an agitated expression that caught the attention of Boston’s dugout. Cora requested a timeout and was joined by a team trainer for a brief chit-chat with Chapman.
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“I saw him move his shoulder, kind of like stretching it out,” Cora told reporters, per NESN. “So I noticed it and we went out there. I asked him and he’s like, ‘I didn’t warm up well,’ which is ironic. He’s probably the hottest arm we have, but the stuff didn’t tell us too much.”
Everything was fine, including Chapman’s velocity — he threw a 99 MPH sinker immediately after Cora’s mound visit. Chapman walked Murphy, got Eli White to fly out to right field and struck out Michael Harris II on three pitches to secure the 37-year-old’s ninth save of the season at Truist Park. It only took Chapman 16 pitches to shut the door on the Braves, and the victory secured a series win for the Red Sox (now 29-32) to conclude their six-game road trip.
Boston has received everything the club needed when chief baseball officer Craig Breslow signed Chapman to a one-year contract this past offseason. The seven-time All-Star improved with a 1.88 ERA, has only failed to convert one of 10 save opportunities thus far and has tallied 32 strikeouts across 24 innings of relief. Chapman has tapped into the flame-throwing dominance that made him unhittable during the peak of his career with the Cincinnati Reds and it’s bailed the Red Sox out several times this season.
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Chapman making it out of Atlanta without anything that’ll land him on the team’s injury list alongside Alex Bregman, Triston Casas, Masataka Yoshida, Justin Slaten and others, is a victory in itself for Boston.
