Aroldis Chapman Was Historically Fast on Tuesday Night

Get used to hearing a lot about Chapmania over the final month of the major league season.

The Reds wasted no time getting Aroldis Chapman into his first big league game on Tuesday night and Chapman wasted no time in living up to every bit of the hype that was building since he signed with the Reds in January. He retired the side on eight pitches, two of which the television broadcast's radar gun clocked at 103 miles per hour.

The gun wasn't juiced. The Pitch/FX system used by major league baseball came up with 102.7 and 102.5 mph for those two pitches. The faster of the two is tied with two Joel Zumaya pitches for the fastest in baseball since the system came into use in 2008. The other was good enough to give Chapman two of the eight fastest pitches in that time frame. Not too shabby for the first time out of the gate.
It gets better. Chapman's six fastballs averaged more than 100 miles per hour, bettering Zumaya for the tops in baseball this season. Zumaya is one of only four pitchers in baseball that averaged more than 97 mph this year which puts Chapman at the top of some very exclusive company.

Now for the cautionary note: As you probably know, Zumaya is out for the season because of a fracture in his arm, the second straight year that ended early because of injury. Stephen Strasburg, one of the other 97+ hurlers, is also out for the season. Chapmania replaced Strasmania as the rookie pitching mania du jour and it would be a pretty terrible turn of events if he wound up following him onto the disabled list.

Let's hope that doesn't happen because a healthy Chapman promises to make for a much more exciting September and October in Cincinnati and around the major leagues. Who knows, he might even throw a ball fast enough to send it back in time.

Reds manager Dusty Baker joins the The MLB Hour to talk about Aroldis Chapman and the NL Central. Click below to watch: