Red Sox Legend Breaks Silence as $13.3M Star Approaches ‘Untouchable’ Record Amid Surprise Move

“I’m always careful to say, ‘This person exceeded expectations,’ because that seems like we didn’t have high expectations. But we did have very high expectations, and he’s been every bit as good or better than expected,” Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow told MassLive a week before giving 37-year-old veteran reliever Aroldis Chapman a one-year $13.3 million contract extension.

Chapman is in the midst of a breakthrough season, shattering expectations with a stunning 1.04 ERA, 26 saves, and 74 strikeouts in 52 innings. His career-best 401 ERA+, along with a remarkable 0.67 WHIP and 2.4 walks per nine innings, showcase his brilliant command at age 37. His average fastball velocity of 98.9 mph ranks in the 98th percentile at the time of the August 30 contract extension.

With just 23 games remaining, Chapman’s pursuit of history is on the minds of many. Jordan Moore of DraftKings recently highlighted on X: “If Aroldis Chapman (1.00 ERA) throws 5.0 more innings without giving up a run, he’ll have the lowest season ERA of any relief pitcher in Red Sox history. Jonathan Papelbon currently holds the record with 0.92 ERA in 2006. He’s gone 46 straight batters without giving up a hit.”

Papelbon, the current record-holder, echoed the sentiment by re-sharing the tweet with a hopeful caption: “Records are meant to be broke. I hope he breaks it and if @RedSox make playoffs I hope has a better postseason!”

Papelbon established that record during his incredible rookie season in 2006, after transitioning to a reliever late in a series against the Rangers, where he pitched 11 final innings with two strikeouts and preserved a 2-1 victory. For the season, he recorded a 0.92 ERA, 35 saves, and was dominant over his first 14 games with no runs and just seven hits allowed over 15 1/3 innings.

Since then, stars like Koji Uehara (1.09 ERA in the 2013 championship run), Craig Kimbrel (1.43 ERA in 2017), and Daniel Bard (1.93 ERA in 2010) have come close, but no one has surpassed Papelbon’s 0.92 benchmark in 19 years.

And now Chapman, with his mixtape legacy, will take his chance..

The Cuban Missile owns a 59-47 record, a 2.52 lifetime ERA, and three hundred sixty-two saves across his career with Cincinnati, New York, Chicago, Kansas City, Texas, Pittsburgh, and Boston. And with more than sixteen major-league seasons, he sits third in all-time in strikeouts with 1,322 and 13th on the career saves list by a reliever.

But this season, at 37 years old, Chapman is a different kind of beast, not just for stats and records but for defying his age. He has already thrown 156 pitches at 100 mph or more this year and is ranking sixth in the majors behind just Mason Miller ( 27-year-old), Daniel Palencia (25-year-old), Jhoan Duran (27-year-old), Hunter Greene (26-year-old), and Seth Halvorsen (25-year-old). And he had an average fastball velocity of 100.9 mph through Monday. 

And his team, the Boston Red Sox, stands in the thick of playoff talk with a 77-62 mark and sits in a tight AL East race, chasing the leaders by roughly 2.5 games while Chapman chases history. With winning seven of their last ten games, calling up reliever Zack Kelly and catcher Ali Sánchez on September 1, and rewarding Chapman with a one-year extension with a mutual option for 2027, the Red Sox are clearly on the move before this late-season push.