Aroldis Chapman's Red Sox rise just hit a disgusting new level for Yankees fans

Breathe. Calm yourself. Stick to the facts. No rash judgments. No overreactions. Just ... be reasonable. Aroldis Chapman's sudden discovery of his command and rebirth to a new higher-than-his-previous-peak level with the Red Sox at the age of 37 should be investigated by the FBI. Dammit, see, it's impossible. It's impossible to speak rationally about this.

The Yankees employed Chapman at what should've been the back end of his peak, acquiring him ahead of his age-28 season under dubious circumstances. Red Sox fans loved to point out those horrible circumstances when he was a Yankee, but seem to have grown more silent about them with each passing save this season. His behavior was gross then. It is still gross now.

New York traded Chapman midway through his first season in pinstripes as their playoff hopes flatlined, then reacquired him after the 2016 season and somehow kept him for six more years, until the age of 34. There was some brilliance in there; he is a likely Hall of Famer, after all (unless the writers remember the character clause). His 93 Ks in 51 1/3 innings in 2018, for instance. His 2.21 ERA the following season.

But, all along, there were always the warts. Every month-and-a-half or so (if not more often), Chapman would enter a game with no earthly idea where the ball was going. You would know from his very first off-kilter offering whether he'd survive or not. Often, these lapses would occur during his most pressure-packed games, as evidenced by his 5.71 ERA at Fenway Park in 18 appearances (six saves) while wearing a Yankee uniform. He ended that 2019 season with a walk-off home run in Houston. He ended the 2020 season with a late-game Mike Brosseau home run in San Diego in an ALDS no one wants to remember. Then, his real decline began, with a roller coaster 2021 (97 Ks in 56 1/3 frames, a 3.99 FIP that indicated his lapses were becoming more frequent) and a 2022 season in which he subtracted WAR (0.2), posted a 4.46 ERA, missed time with an infected tattoo, and quit before the playoffs when he wasn't guaranteed a roster spot. He'd gone from mess to messier. Maybe he'd rebound somewhat in a different city, but his career as an elite closer - at 34 - seemed all but over.

He immediately bounced back in Kansas City (of course), but barely contained himself down the stretch and into the postseason with Texas, where he posted a 3.72 ERA and handed the playoff closer role to Jose Leclerc. He was a strikeout-generating Pirate last season, but hit that 3.79 ERA mark that seemed to represent his most likely end-of-career outcome: vicious lefty on occasion, prone to implosions.

Except ... now he's a Red Sox. And he hasn't allowed a hit in a month. Or blown up once. Or even broken a sweat. Either the meltdown is coming in October, and it'll be the sweetest one yet, or he learned an entirely new trick at the tail end of his career (just 14 walks and an 0.686 WHIP in 51 innings!!!) in the worst possible city.

Sure seems like the second thing.

As we learned from a Salvador Perez Instagram comment when Chapman signed with the Red Sox, joining Boston was always his dream. If true, this transformation only makes him look worse; suspicions that he might have been sandbagging the end of his Yankees career now seem more factual. Maybe he was sandbagging all of it. The wry smile in Houston after the Jose Altuve home run should've tipped us off.

Now, all we can hope for is that the reckoning arrives when Red Sox fans least expect it, and that all this stunning better-than-ever-before greatness is just setting them up for the fall. That would require something to karmically go right for the Yankees, though. Feels unlikely.