Aroldis Chapman leads left-handed relievers in strikeouts

ATLANTA — Aroldis Chapman ran to Truist Park’s pitcher’s mound Saturday knowing that he had a chance at history. He just had to do something he had done 1,195 times before: Strike out a batter.

Needing to post a zero to force extra innings, Chapman delivered a scoreless frame with two strikeouts, a slider that Travis d’Arnaud swung over and a 102.9 mph sinker to fan Sean Murphy. The second punchout was No. 1,197 of his career, passing Billy Wagner for the most in Major League history by a left-handed reliever.

“It’s the result of hard work through the years,” Chapman said postgame, via interpreter and coach Stephen Morales. “You put in hard work every day, and thank God that I can achieve a milestone like this.”

Chapman broke into the Majors with the Reds in 2010, the last year of Wagner’s career, which coincidentally was in Atlanta. But the two southpaws never crossed paths. In fact, growing up in Cuba, Chapman didn’t get to watch many of the relievers who are at the top of the all-time strikeout leaderboard because Major League Baseball games were not permitted to be shown.

He’s also climbing the leaderboard among all relievers, which now goes Hoyt Wilhelm first (1,363 strikeouts), Goose Gossage second (1,340), Craig Kimbrel third (1,236), Lee Smith fourth (1,225) and Chapman. Behind Wagner, Kenley Jansen is seventh.

“I haven’t checked my phone yet, but I’m pretty sure that there’s a lot of texts and stuff like that because my phone has been going crazy, vibrating and making sounds,” Chapman said. “I’m pretty sure that’s my family.”

This is Chapman’s first season with the Pirates, signing as a free agent to bolster the back end of the bullpen. A closer for most of his 15-year career, he’s had some ups and downs with the Pirates in his new role, but has looked like his prime self of late, which has been extremely beneficial with David Bednar on the injured list. That final pitch to Murphy was vintage high velocity stuff. Even at 36 years old, Chapman is the only lefty in baseball to reach 102 mph, and he’s done it 20 times this season (reaching as high as 104 mph).

Not that he was going out to the mound trying to just throw heat.

“Velocity doesn’t matter,” Chapman said. “The most important thing there is I was going for the strikeout and it happens.”