4 Yankees under most pressure in 2020 MLB playoffs

2. Aroldis Chapman

Most Yankees images of Aroldis Chapman in the playoffs have been a disappointment.

Yes, this ‘pen spot could’ve gone to Chad Green here, who’s battled the Overuse Monster in his past few postseasons (81.00 ERA against the Indians in 2017 after a game-saving Wild Card performance and a 9.64 mark against the Astros last season). But we feel like it’s more appropriate to single out the man who was on the mound when the most feel-good season of the past decade came clattering down.

When Jose Altuve’s home run cleared the Crawford Boxes in left field, the buzz around the Yanks disappeared immediately (pun very much intended), and it was Chapman’s wry smile that served as the final image of an incredible season, dedicated to overcoming the odds all the way down to DJ LeMahieu’s game-tying blast.

Instead, the biggest Yankee hit in a decade was rendered a footnote, and Chapman was deemed the responsible party by most of this fanbase. We’ve seen Chapman look electric in the postseason (he owned Cleveland in ’17), but more than a few times now he’s looked human, including the Carlos Correa walk-off in 2017, last year’s weirdness, and even the Overuse Olympics during the Cubs’ 2016 World Series run.

When you’re living in Mariano Rivera’s shadow, too, assessments only get more stringent. This postseason, and every postseason, will be huge for Chapman in terms of redefining his “exhausted smile” narrative. To overcome the pressure, he’ll need to present an emotion other than “complete disbelief” every time he’s hit hard, and figure out how to fix things on the fly.