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By Ben Watanabe
Contributing Sports Writer
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The Boston Red Sox must be tempted to look the other way.
To ignore the problem. To pretend nothing troublesome is happening.
Considering how close they are to true World Series contention, that would be a mistake.
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Aroldis Chapman technically didn't blow the save in Sunday's loss to the Athletics. That honor belonged to Garrett Whitlock. But Chapman was saddled with the loss after giving up the go-ahead run and preventing the Red Sox from claiming a 10th consecutive series victory. The blemish was one of the few times this season that the cracks in Chapman's intimidating aura has cost the Red Sox.
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Because there is ample reason for the Red Sox to be worried about Chapman.
The 38-year-old is coming off a revelatory first season in Boston in which he notched 32 saves and posted a 351 ERA+, recapturing the strikeout dominance from his much younger days. The command problems of previous years disappeared. There were many shortcomings with that squad, which fell in the first round as an AL Wild Card team, but Chapman wasn't one of them.
Outwardly, Chapman appears just as fearsome this season. He earned another All-Star nod, his 2.04 ERA is below his career average and he's blown just two save opportunities, the same number he did last season. His fastball and sinker still light up the radar gun. His post-strikeout pose is still majestically photogenic. There might have been a mutiny if chief baseball officer Craig Breslow had dealt Chapman at the MLB trade deadline.
And yet.
Chapman's strikeout rate has ticked down while the always looming specter of walks has arisen. His 2.78 strikeout-to-walk ratio is one of the lowest of his career. He's allowing 7.0 hits per nine innings, the highest of his career. He's only one defeat short of tying his single-season career high in games lost, which for a backend reliever is a very meaningful statistic. For a starter, losses can simply mean a lack of run support or bad luck. For a reliever, losses mean they came in with their team ahead or tied, and they gave away the game.
It's understandable why the Red Sox keep handing Chapman the ball, though. It wasn't so long ago that they won a championship despite a closer on shaky ground; the 2018 World Series club overcame Craig Kimbrel's penchant for walking too many batters and giving up too many home runs. One benefit of being a closer is that you almost always enter into a clean inning, so the foibles that are fatal for middle-inning or setup men aren't as costly.
The Red Sox can afford some wiggle room for now. They are solidly in wild card territory and within sight of the Tampa Bay Rays and New York Yankees in the AL East. If a tough decision must be made, interim manager Chad Tracy was other options as finishers. Whitlock is as unhittable as always, and Justin Slaten, Tyron Guerrero and newly acquired Erik Miller are also back there if Tracy wants to get creative. None have Chapman's track record of success, but then again, that also comes with a track record of shakiness.
As the regular season winds down and each game becomes more meaningful, a questionable Chapman isn't ideal for the Red Sox. Whether he can correct his issues could determine whether this fairytale season has a happy ending for Boston.
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