Maddon defends use of Chapman during WS: 'There is no Game 8'
Aroldis Chapman may not have agreed with how Joe Maddon used him during the team's World Series victory this past November, but if the Chicago Cubs manager had to do it all again, nothing would change.
After his official unveiling as the newest member of the New York Yankees on Friday, Chapman spoke with reporters and discussed how he felt about his increased workload during the crucial series.
"Personally, I don't agree with the way he used me, but he is the manager and he has the strategy. My job is to be ready, to be ready to pitch, however that is, however many innings that is, I need to be ready for that. I need to go in and do my job."
Chapman, who normally throws a limited amount of pitches during his ninth-inning role as closer, tossed 55 pitches during Games 6 and 7 against the Cleveland Indians, and didn't believe it needed to be that way.
"I don't think I needed to come into the game," Chapman said of pitching in Game 6, according to The Associated Press. "The important game was going to be Game 7 because basically we had that game almost won, and the next day I came in a little tired."
The 28-year-old ended up blowing a save in Game 7 thanks to a three-run eighth inning - which included a game-tying two-run blast from Rajai Davis - before eventually picking up the win.
After learning of Chapman's comments, Maddon offered insight into why he asked the flame-throwing closer to pitch as much as he did.
"Would I do it differently? No. There is no Game 7 without winning Game 6. And there is no Game 8 if you don't win Game 7. That's why you do what you have to do," Maddon told the New York Post's Kevin Kernan. "I appreciate what he said. If he feels that way, he did not tell me about that at the moment or after the moment.
"Every game I put him in, I talked to him and his interpreter to make sure that he was OK because this season he did not like pitching multiple innings so we stopped doing it. So I talked to him about if we did that in the playoffs, how would he feel about that and he said he was fine with that.
"At the end of the day, man, we would not have won without him, and I appreciate everything he did. But I promise everything we did do, we did with his consent by talking to him prior to the game."