Aroldis Chapman unavailable due to “achy” shoulder

Something obviously wasn’t right with Reds closer Aroldis Chapman when he walked all four batters he faced Sunday and sure enough he was unavailable last night due to what the team is calling an “achy” shoulder.

Here’s what manager Bryan Price told Mark Sheldon of MLB.com:

He’s just a little achy and it just doesn’t make sense at all for us to keep running him out there. He was a little achy [Sunday]. I didn’t want to say anything but he was. By the time we knew there might be an issue, the damage was done yesterday. Our trainers say it’s a day-to-day thing and that he could be ready to go soon. I’m not crossing him off our list for tomorrow by any means.

For whatever it’s worth, Chapman averaged 99.5 miles per hour with his fastball in Sunday’s walk-fest, topping out at 101.5 mph. It was just the second time in this season’s 39 appearances that Chapman walked more than one batter and prior to walking four consecutive batters he’d walked a total of four batters in his previous 11 appearances, spanning 11 innings with a 0.84 ERA, .125 opponents’ batting average, and 20/4 K/BB ratio.
Editor’s Note: Hardball Talk’s partner FanDuel is hosting a one-day $125,000 Fantasy Baseball league for Tuesday night’s MLB games. It’s $25 to join and first prize is $15,000. Starts at 7:05pm ET on Tuesday. Here’s the FanDuel link.

Follow @AaronGleeman