Havana/Cuban pitcher Aroldis Chapman has become the leader in strikeouts as a reliever in the Major Leagues in all of history. Last Friday, the Boston Red Sox player reached 1,364 chocolates and left behind a record that had stood for more than half a century.
The 38-year-old from Holguín, who left Team Cuba in 2009 on a tour of Rotterdam, Netherlands, achieved the mark with a high pitch to Denzer Guzmán, of the Los Angeles Angels, with a speed of 98.6 miles per hour, in the bottom of the ninth inning. His performance also earned him his 17th save of the season and 384th of his career.
He has achieved that number of strikeouts in a 17-year career in the MLB and broke the mark held by Hoyt Wilhelm, a member of the Hall of Fame, whose 21-year career ended in 1972, just five days shy of five decades of life.
After achieving the milestone, in his 889th appearance in the Major Leagues, all as a reliever, Boston celebrated the Holguin native’s achievement with a retrospective video of the pitcher’s career that was shown to his younger teammates, from his debut with Cincinnati in 2010, to his two World Series championships.
“I feel very happy, very proud of what I have achieved”
“I feel very happy, very proud of what I have achieved,” said the left-hander, who added that he feels “very satisfied.”
Most of the strikeouts were achieved with the Cincinnati Reds (546), his first team in the Major Leagues, in which he played from 2010 to 2015. With the New York Yankees he achieved another good part of that record (453), a squad in which he also played for five years. He later scored 98 with the Pittsburgh Pirates, 53 with Kansas City, 50 with the Texas Rangers, 46 with the Chicago Cubs and 118 with his current team.
“I focused on doing the job, day after day, for the last few weeks, getting to this point where I had the opportunity to break the record,” the pitcher said. “I had ups and downs, but I have tried to stay positive all the time,” he added.
According to the specialized media Swing Completo, in a campaign where he could say goodbye to baseball, the “Cuban pitcher will seek 50 strikeouts in 50 innings, which would certify him as a dominant reliever of all time, breaking the barrier of 1,500 strikeouts.”
He has two World Series titles under his belt. He was crowned with the Chicago Cubs in 2016 and with the Texas Rangers in 2023
In his career in the Major Leagues, he has been selected to the All-Star Game eight times and has risen to tenth place on the MLB saves list. In addition, he has two World Series titles under his belt. He was crowned with the Chicago Cubs in 2016 and with the Texas Rangers in 2023, and is the current winner of the Reliever of the Year Award in the American League.
Before leaving the Island, he had a frustrated escape attempt in 2008, after participating with the national team that won the gold medal at the Beijing Olympic Games. Chapman commented that due to his final escape, in 2009, he had, as happens with all athletes who escape, to spend eight years without being able to enter Cuba. “I was the black sheep of all of Holguín and possibly of all of Cuba,” he recalled.
Last year, Chapman rejected the plan of the Cuban Baseball Federation (FCB), which at the time floated the possibility of reinforcing the national team that would participate in the VI World Classic with exiles. “I was a traitor, a worm and a sellout, and now they want us to go play,” he complained at the time.
“I was a traitor, a worm and a sellout, and now they want us to go play,” he complained at the time.
The flight of high-level players has significantly impacted the results of the beautiful sport on the Island. In the last World Baseball Classic, Team Asere had the worst result in its historyafter not even qualifying for the second round, being eliminated after adding two wins and two losses.
Before, except for the fortuitous fourth place obtained by the Cuban team in the World Baseball Classic in 2023, the national team has added failures in the different international events where it has appeared. in the tournament Premier 12which brings together the best teams in the world, the team went from sixth place in 2015 to penultimate place (11th), tied with Puerto Rico, in 2024.
The sum of bad results caused Cuba to drop to 12th position in the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) rankings in the middle of last year. worst place for the Island since this system was invented in 2011.
