CHICAGO – Aroldis Chapman’s Red Sox tenure has gotten off to a very strong start in the first two weeks of the season. However, Saturday brought the Veteran Roser’s first meltdown of the season. And it unfolded in a somewhat predictable way.
Having owned 4.7 walks per nine days throughout his 16-year major league career, Chapman issued a leadoff walk to Lewis Robert Jr. in nine innings, setting the White Sox walk-off table. After a seven-pitch free pass to Robert, Chapman hit a triple digit twice to hit Andrew Vaughan, then Robert came in second without a throw from catcher Carlos Narvers. It took five pitches to finish the game with 24-year-old Brooks Baldwin, racing a splitter to the left field line.
“Leader-off walks, it doesn’t matter if it’s nine or the first inning,” manager Alex Cora said. “Robert did a good job stealing second. The kid then made a good swing on the fastball.”
To his surprise, Chapman won the ninth job through Liam Hendrix (eventually injured) and Justin Slatin, hitting 14 in seven innings and owning a 2.45 ERA. Entering Saturday, he was equally good in the regular season, earning two wins with two saves in six scoreless appearances (5 innings) while recording a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 8-3. Baldwin’s hit was fourth by opponents this season.
“The plan was to attack him with a fastball,” Chapman said through translator Daveson Perez. “Mix the splits if necessary.
“It hurts all the losses we have. We’ve had some tough losses here recently. This time I took the L.
Close losses on Saturday saw early seasonal strength as the Red Sox fall into weakness for at least one day. The Red Sox entered that day with a bullpen era of 3.86, ranked in the top half of baseball, but the rescue team was blamed on the club’s fifth loss in six games.
Starter Richard Fitz cruised five shutout innings before leaving with “right shoulder pain” while leading the sixth in the face of Miguel Vargas. Reliever Zach Kelly hadn’t been warming before Fitz’s injury, but he had to get warm right away on the stadium mound before he began going out 2-2 counts to Vargas. Kelly walked him and attacked Nick Mutton before leaving the pitch in the middle of the plate to pay Kelly, slugger Robert Jr.’s Robert Robert, who hit a two-run homer to the center of the right to erase a 2-0 Boston lead.
“It’s very difficult,” said manager Alex Cora. “They’re used to warming up in the bullpen. You seem to be in the middle of the island and you see everyone warming you. He’s not making any excuses.”
The two Justin (Wilson and Slatin) maintained the game in conjunction with a scoreless look, but the Red Sox continued their trend for a week and were not attacked later in the game. So when Robert reached base to start ninth, it was a threat enough to pass the victory to the Chisox on a day when he only hit four total times.
Meanwhile, the Red Sox have scored just 11 points in their six games since the 18-run blast on Sunday.
“They’re always tough (loss), but we didn’t score. At the end of the day, we’ll start the batting. We know that,” Cora said.
“We had 33% of the bats where the runners were scoring. We’re not getting cash. We’re shaking a lot. We’re chasing a lot. I think it’s a little better today.”
