Yankees giving Aroldis Chapman championship belt won’t help fan outrage

New York Yankees fans are sick and tired of holding onto their butts whenever Aroldis Chapman enters the game in the ninth inning. Non-Yankees fans will likely look at Chapman’s numbers and call every critic a whiny complainer, but like we said, the eye test is also a thing.

Chapman is erratic in just about every way you can imagine. He frequently enters games with no accuracy and diminishing velocity before dialing it up against the fourth batter he faces after he already allows multiple baserunners.

Yankees fans saw the warning signs in his game despite the 0.00 ERA through his first 12 outings. And we’re here to inform you the fans were right again.

Over his last four outings, Chapman has looked awful, surrendering an earned run each time he took the mound. That’s brought him to a 2.63 ERA, 3.81 FIP and 1.46 WHIP on the year.

On Tuesday night, Chapman recorded the “save” but made it as difficult as humanly possible against the lowly Baltimore Orioles. After getting the first two batters out, Chapman allowed three straight hits to the bottom of the lineup, which put the O’s within a run.

Thankfully, he got Cedric Mullins to pop out to end the game, but the damage was already done. What was supposed to be a stress-free win with Aaron Judge stealing the headlines turned into a near-laugher because Chapman is once again entering dangerous territory.

Yankees closer Aroldis Chapman is drawing the ire of fans more and more

After the game, Chapman’s teammates proved to be good guys by giving him the championship belt and anointing him the player of the game. While nice and all (hey, that’s good team chemistry!), it’s not going to change the fans’ growing frustrations.

Chapman has been the culprit in far too many high-profile Yankees losses, which indeed changes the narrative surrounding the left-hander despite his all-time numbers (315 saves, 1,017 strikeouts in 617.1 innings).

And now that he’s become a near replacement-level reliever these last two seasons? That’s understandably the final straw for someone making $16 million per year.

Chapman has sealed countless Yankees victories which have helped the team tremendously, but that shouldn’t blind you to his utter failures against some of the Yankees’ biggest rivals.

He owns a career 4.58 ERA and 1.45 WHIP against the Boston Red Sox and a 5.59 ERA and 1.81 WHIP against the Houston Astros. He’s just as bad against the Mets, too (5.12 ERA and 1.55 WHIP) and is totally OK against the Blue Jays (3.62 ERA and 1.17 WHIP).

Far too often, the numbers don’t truly describe how you’re about to rip your hair out watching fastballs fly into the backstop 10 feet over the catcher’s head or splitters being dropped over the heart of the plate for the opposition to tee off on.

The fan outrage is here to stay until Chapman proves he won’t be a liability in the Yankees’ possible final attempt at a World Series with this current core.

The silver lining, if we can even call it that? Whether he orchestrates another postseason exit or not, Yankees fans won’t ever have to see him again after he hits free agency in November.

Tim Anderson quote proves MLB catching up to Yankees’ Aroldis Chapman

New York Yankees closer Aroldis Chapman isn't the dominating force he used to be, and White Sox star Tim Anderson isn't intimidated.