Chapman brings the heat

Aroldis Chapman made his much anticipated debut earlier this evening, and he did not disappoint. He pitched a perfect 8th inning with a strikeout and two weak ground outs, and it would be an understatement to say that he lit up the radar gun. Six of his eight pitches were fastballs (the other two were sliders). Here are the velocities of his fastballs:

98.4

102.5

100.3

102.7

101.4

98.6

With his second pitch registered at 103 mph, he passed Bobby Parnell (who threw a pitch gunned at 102.5 mph a few weeks ago) as the max velocity leader in 2010. In case you're wondering, Chapman's fastballs average out to 100.65 mph, which is fairly ridiculous. The last pitcher to throw a pitch as hard as Chapman did tonight was Joel Zumaya, who threw two pitches at 102.7 in June of 2009.

Gameday PITCHf/x data is from MLB Advanced Media.