Cincinnati’s Aroldis Chapman Back Up, Travis Wood Loses Rotation Spot

Chapman’s numbers with Louisville are still pretty ugly -- particularly the 11.77 ERA -- but he’s walked only two batters in 5-2/3 innings, which is a welcome switch from the wildness that got him sent down and placed on the DL. Chapman hasn’t pitched for the Reds since the 15th of May; that outing was the last in a startling four-appearance stretch in which he walked 12 of the 19 batters he faced.

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Since Chapman has reached the maximum number of days (30) that he can be on a rehab assignment, this means he’ll likely be optioned to Triple-A so he can continue to work on coming back. Chapman threw a scoreless inning Tuesday night and has now run a scoreless streak to six innings, but the Reds apparently feel he’s not quite ready to return to the major leagues.

A poster at SB Nation’s Reds blog Red Reporter appears to think this injury might not be “real”:

The word is that Chapman has a touch of shoulder inflammation. If I wasn’t so sure this was a phantom injury to help him get sorted out, I might be worried about it.

“His arm slot gets too low,” Price said. “He gets across the ball. He’s pulling a lot of balls inside to right-handed hitters.”

Confidence can also play into it when you struggle. Chapman has walked eight batters in his last three outings and has only gotten three outs.

--snip--

“I think the first part is a slight mechanical adjustment. The second part is that when he’s out there, he’s pitching with his confidence. When you struggle a while, you start to question yourself a little bit. I don’t know that he’s there, but I know it’s a typical response.”

Physically, Price said, Chapman is fine.Over the course of less than 24 hours, Chapman went from “fine” to “placed on the disabled list with shoulder inflammation”, according to this tweet from the Chicago Tribune’s Paul Sullivan:

There’s no word yet on who will replace Chapman on the Reds’ 25-man roster. The Reds host the Cubs at Great American Ball Park Monday night at 7:10 p.m. EDT.

First he threw harder than maybe anyone’s ever thrown. Maybe it’s Chapman #1, Dalkowski #2. Or maybe it’s Dalkowski #1, Chapman #2. But nobody ever pointed a JUGS gun at Dalkowski; all we’ve got is the legend. With Chapman, we’ve actually got something that says he threw 105 miles an hour.

That was last year.