The Cuban left-hander Aroldis Chapman was the key player in the victory of the Boston Red Sox over the Seattle Mariners by 9-8 in 10 innings, this Monday at Fenway Park, in a game that the home team dramatically came back to win.
Chapman took the mound in the tenth inning and responded with authority: he struck out two batters and allowed no runs, with a fastball that reached 100.2 miles per hour.
The performance earned him the victory, his third of the 2026 season and the 63rd of his Major League career, in addition to lowering his ERA to 1.77.
The game was filled with tension. The Mariners took a lead of 8-5 after a home run by Cal Raleigh in the seventh inning, but Boston began to rally with a two-run double from Trevor Story in the eighth.
Ceddanne Rafaela tied the game 8-8 with a sacrifice fly in the ninth, and it was Story himself who sealed the game in the tenth with a run-scoring single with the bases loaded that brought in Eli White for the winning run.
At 38 years old, the pitcher from Holguín remains an anomaly in modern baseball: pitching over 100 miles per hour at that age places him in a category of his own within Boston's bullpen.
The 2026 season has been one of the most historic of his career. On July 4th, he became the relief pitcher with the most strikeouts in MLB history by reaching the number 1,364, surpassing the record set by Hoyt Wilhelm, which had remained unbroken since 1972.
Weeks later, Chapman completed his tenth season with at least 30 saves, joining an exclusive group made up solely of Mariano Rivera (15 seasons), Trevor Hoffman (14), and Lee Smith (10).
His contract with Boston, valued at 13.3 million dollars for 2026, has already activated the option for 2027 by surpassing 40 innings pitched during the season, as the agreement itself confirmed.
Chapman has accumulated 397 saves in his career, with an earned run average of 2.48 and 1,391 strikeouts, figures that solidify him as one of the most dominant relievers in Major League history.
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