Aroldis Chapman Pulls Off the Impossible: Escapes Bases-Loaded Nightmare Against the New York Yankees

But here’s where Chapman showed why he’s still one of the game’s elite closers. With the entire stadium losing its collective mind and three Yankees representing the tying and winning runs, Chapman found his zen. “Just try to calm myself down, try to execute pitch by pitch,” Chapman said through an interpreter afterward. “That was my mentality.” Easy to say. Harder to do when Giancarlo Stanton is digging in at the plate and 47,000 people are praying for your downfall.

The Execution Was Poetry In Motion

What happened next was a masterclass in closing. Chapman froze Stanton with a disgusting 92 mph splitter that had more movement than a politician during election season. One down. Jazz Chisholm Jr. stepped up next and managed only a shallow fly ball to right field. Not nearly deep enough to score a run. Two down. That left Trent Grisham as the Yankees’ last hope.

Chapman reached back and fired a 101.2 mph four-seamer that Grisham couldn’t catch up to. Game over. Series lead secured. Chapman glared into his own dugout and pounded his chest. After all those October heartbreaks, this one belonged to him.

The Historical Significance Is Mind-Blowing

Here’s a stat that’ll make your head spin: according to OptaSTATS, the Yankees became the first team in playoff history to load the bases with nobody out in the bottom of the ninth and fail to score a single run while losing the game.

Read that again. In the entire history of Major League Baseball Playoffs, no team had ever been in that exact situation and come up empty. The Yankees didn’t just lose – they made history doing it. That is the kind of stat that’ll follow this Yankees team around like a bad smell. It’s also the kind of moment that can define a closer’s legacy in the opposite direction.

Chapman Faces His Past Head-On

The subplot here is delicious. Chapman spent parts of five seasons in pinstripes, including that infamous 2022 season when he basically quit on the team by skipping a workout, leading to him being left off the playoff roster entirely.

When asked if there was extra satisfaction in shutting down his former team, Chapman kept it professional: “The past is the past. Just happy to be able to close out the game.”

Looking Ahead: Game 2 and Beyond

The Red Sox now sit one win away from advancing to the ALDS, and they have to be feeling pretty good about their chances. Chapman threw 24 pitches in that high-stress situation, which could impact his availability for the next game or two.

“I like us getting a little chance to see Chapman there,” Judge said after the game, probably trying to convince himself as much as anyone else. “We’ll see him over the next two days, that’s for sure.”

The thing is, sometimes seeing a guy doesn’t make him any easier to hit. Especially when that guy just pulled off one of the gutsiest closing performances in recent playoff memory. Chapman didn’t just save a game Tuesday night. He exercised some serious October demons and reminded everyone why, at 37 years old, he’s still one of the most intimidating pitchers on the planet when the lights are brightest.