BALTIMORE — Had rain not washed out Wednesday night’s Yankees-Orioles game, pushing back this series finale to Thursday afternoon, “I possibly would have closed with him tonight,” manager Joe Girardi said, “knowing that the other guys could probably use a day off.”
Let’s take the next step and move that to “Definitely.” Girardi, without saying it so clearly, is moving swiftly in that direction.
Aroldis Chapman lost the job, understandably, due to a small sample’s worth of bad work. So he should get it back the same way. The best version of this Yankees team has Chapman as its closer. And the Yankees will need to be at their best to ensure they reach their first division series since 2012.
“I think if he’s your closer, that means he’s throwing well, and that means everybody’s throwing well,” Girardi said, after the Orioles announced the rainout. “So that’s probably your best team, yes.”
I’m not sure a thriving Chapman necessarily means that guys like Dellin Betances and David Robertson are doing well, too. Then again, it has been an exhausting stretch for the Yankees when you consider their run of tough opponents, bad weather and an epic game of “Spy vs. Spy” with the Red Sox.
Betances lost Tuesday night’s game in particularly tough fashion, getting the first two outs of the ninth inning before walking Tim Beckham and serving up a walk-off, two-run homer to the red-hot Manny Machado for a 7-6 Yankees defeat.
Though Betances still misses a multitude of bats, with 91 strikeouts in 52 ²/₃ innings this season, his walks are up precipitously, with his 38 just two short of the career-worst 40 he notched two years ago. He would be a fine closer, as would Robertson, obviously, who did the job well enough for the 2014 Yankees that he got himself a fine contract from the White Sox which the Yankees assumed back.
Neither of them is Chapman when he’s right, though, and the same goes for the other members of this deep bullpen. On Tuesday, after Robertson threw a 1-2-3 seventh, Girardi turned to Chapman for his highest-leverage opportunity since getting demoted last month. Chapman responded with a perfect frame, getting Trey Mancini and Mark Trumbo on groundouts and catching Chris Davis on a called strike three, a 101-mph fastball.
The performance had a talent evaluator on site marveling at Chapman’s dominance.
“He’s back,” said the evaluator, who works for an American League team.
Chapman, after Tuesday’s game, declared himself as newly confident. In five games since getting removed from the closer’s role, he has given up one run over 4 ²/₃ innings, striking out six and walking one. Consider that it was essentially a poor four-game stretch, from August 11 through August 18 that got him in trouble in the first place, although he hasn’t seemed right for much of this year.
Asked to explain Chapman’s progress, Girardi said, “Not really … much [change] mechanically, but he has been ahead in the count and throwing more strikes, and that’s the difference. The at-bats have been shorter.”
Maybe we’ll find out eventually that Chapman was tipping his pitches, or he just experienced a hangover from last year’s well-publicized workload with the Cubs (my bet), or something else. For now, as long as he doesn’t regress, the Yankees won’t sweat the past. They’ll count on their $86 million man going forward.
“It’s something we’ll continue to talk about,” Girardi said of giving Chapman his old job back. “But the best thing from all of this is Chappy has thrown the ball really well the last two times. Last night was probably as good as we’ve seen in a while and that’s a really good thing.”
Pressed a little more about Chapman closing, Girardi said, “I would not be afraid to use him at any point.” As well he shouldn’t. The sooner Chapman is fully re-established as the ninth-inning guy, the more likely that these Yankees make something special out of 2017.