Aroldis Chapman lit up Statcast brighter than usual against the Twins
Ever since he broke into the Major Leagues back in 2010, there's been velocity, and there's been Aroldis Chapman velocity. Not only has baseball's resident rocket launcher struck out more than 15 batters per nine innings over his career, but he even forced the Statcast™ fastest pitch leaderboard to create a filter distinguishing between "Chapman" and "everybody else."
So it wasn't too big of a surprise when Chapman once again lit up the radar gun while striking out the side to close out the Yankees' 5-3 win over the Twins on Friday.
But that wasn't just any heat -- it was ridiculous even by Chapman's lofty standards, and it managed to blow up the Statcast™ record books in one fell swoop. The lefty manage to throw the five fastest pitches recorded by Statcast™ this season (and five of the six fastest ever!) on Thursday night, the top four of which came in one at-bat against poor Kurt Suzuki: 103.8, 103.8, 103.7, 103.6. He had 103.3 one batter earlier, because he clearly hadn't gotten loose yet. We now take you to a live look-in at the Yankee Stadium mound:
