The Yankees beat the Tigers last night and the ninth inning was over in the blink of an eye. Aroldis Chapman needed only seven pitches to get a pop-up to first, a grounder to second, and a strikeout to nail down his first save of the new season. The only number that seemed to matter: 97.0 mph. That was Chapman’s average fastball for the night.
“Obviously, he was really efficient,” Aaron Boone said to Dan Martin following the game. “It looked like there was good life on his fastball. I wasn’t overly concerned with it (but) it was good to see him come in and start to push it up a little bit and look like his stuff was crisp.