BALTIMORE — On Thursday night, Aroldis Chapman walked the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth and needed Michael King to save him out of the Yankees bullpen.
About 24 hours later, Aaron Boone called on Chapman to put out a fire with the bases loaded and one out in the 11th inning of a tie game.
Chapman nearly did for Clarke Schmidt what King had for him the night before, but after getting within a strike of escaping the jam, he threw four straight balls to walk in a run as the Orioles walked off with a 2-1 win on Friday night at Camden Yards.
After striking out Cedric Mullins on a slider for the second out, Chapman’s final pitch in a full count to Ramon Urias was a slider that came in just above the strike zone. His 1-2 pitch was a 97 mph fastball that might have clipped part of the zone but was called a ball low by home plate umpire Tom Hallion.
Boone said he had no hesitation going back to Chapman on Friday in a situation that left no room for error, a night after the Yankees closer had thrown 12 of his 16 pitches for balls.
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“I thought Chappy threw the ball really well,” said Boone, who along with catcher Jose Trevino argued vehemently with Hallion after the game ended which led to the manager’s ejection. “Coming in, we’re up against it there obviously. But he does great with Mullins. I thought he threw the ball really well tonight. His misses at the end just missed on some tough pitches. But no, I think we were up against it there and had to go there.”
In the clubhouse after the loss, Chapman was looking back at video of the decisive pitches and called them “very close.”
“But at the end, I lost the batter,” Chapman said through an interpreter. “Looking at it, I feel like the pitches were close, could have gone either way. There was one that was down and away, a borderline pitch. The last one, I thought it was a little high.”
Boone had insisted before Friday’s game that Chapman’s poor outing on Thursday was an aberration. Chapman also said the Blue Jays outing had no bearing on his performance Friday.
“I’m not even thinking about last night at all,” he said. “This is a brand new game here and a brand new opportunity. You’re trying to execute and unfortunately things didn’t work out the way we wanted.”