New reason to worry about grimacing Yankees’ Aroldis Chapman

His command everywhere, his velocity down, Yankees closer Aroldis Chapman nearly suffered another meltdown in a 7-3 win over the Rangers at Yankee Stadium on Thursday, August 9, 2018 (8/9/18). The win, combined with the 8-5 loss by the Boston Red Sox to the Toronto Blue Jays, moved the Yankees within eight games of first place in the American League East.

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NEW YORK — Aroldis Chapman wasn’t in the Yankees‘ clubhouse, so reporters couldn’t speak to him.

The question would have been simple, but difficult:

What the heck is going on?

His control terrible and his velocity down, Chapman nearly suffered yet another meltdown in what ended up a 7-3 win over the Rangers at Yankee Stadium on Thursday.

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Chapman walked the first two batters he faced. He had runners on the corners with two outs, but he got Elvis Andrus to strike out swinging to end it.

Manager Aaron Boone had former elite closer Zach Britton warming up in case Chapman completely fell apart.

And Chapman grimaced a few times while on the mound.

The flamethrowing Chapman touched 99 mph with his fastball exactly once. His heater averaged just 96.8 mph — his second-slowest fastball average of the season, just ahead of the 96.79 he put up on July 7 in Toronto (he threw just six pitches).

Boone said he believes Chapman, dealing with back issues over the weekend and left knee tendinitis all season, is “OK” physically.

“He was just finding his command a little bit there,” Boone said. “So, a good job of battling through it, kinda of figuring it out and finding it on the fly there. But I think physically he’s fine.”

“We want to make sure we get to the bottom of it and get him in line and throwing the ball like he can. But, physically, I do believe he’s fine.”

Boone said he thought it might have been a delivery problem for Chapman, who blew his previous opportunity in Boston on Sunday, giving up two earned runs and a hit while walking the bases loaded.

Chapman also erupted to give up three runs against the Mets on July 21 — his first outing after the All-Star break. Chapman has made just eight appearances since July 7. Boone said he didn’t think the left-hander’s lack of work has been a problem.

“I do think it’s a little more mechanical and him trying to get his sights and find it, though,” Boone said. “Maybe just a tick out of wack right now. So we’ll dive into things between Larry and Hark and Chap and hopefully we’ll get to the bottom of it and we’ll get him corrected. But I thought he did a good job of kind of mixing in his slider, obviously there is last couple of hitters to kind of reign it in a little bit to kind of grind through a tough one.”

Brendan Kuty may be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @BrendanKutyNJ. Find NJ.com Yankees on Facebook.