Posnanski: Aroldis Chapman, Cincinnati

Aroldis gets his first taste of Major League hitters

the Royals.

But the amazing part was the ease … there was no grunting, no straining, no laboring. You hear that line all the time about athletes who look as if they were born to do something. Chapman struck out David DeJesus on a hard-sweeping slider that seemed to break two feet. He struck out Chris Getz on a 100-mph fastball that sliced the outside corner – anyway Stewart clocked the pitch at 100 mph. Another scout clocked it at 102. Another got it at 98. Chris Getz’s speed approximation: “It was moving.”

Two batters later Chapman struck out Rick Ankiel on a slider that Ankiel missed by so much he had to be rebooked on a later flight. Watching Ankiel trying to hit Chapman was somewhere between comedy and tragedy; you got the sense that if Ankiel faced Chapman 100 times, he would strike out 100 times.

The Ankiel at-bat was especially poignant because there was a time, not long ago, when Ankiel was that left-handed pitching phenom, the 19-year-old kid who had struck out 416 batters in just 298 minor league innings. No, you never know exactly how the phenom’s story will play out.