Aroldis Chapman had endured a rocky couple of years prior to joining the Red Sox , and coming into his first season in Boston he wasn’t necessarily viewed as the obvious favorite to start 2025 as the club’s closer.

Since then he’s reestablished himself as one of the game’s most dominant relievers, and Sunday he reached another major milestone.

Sunday afternoon Chapman became the ninth player in MLB history to record 400 career saves, reaching the mark by locking down Boston’s 3-1 win over the Baltimore Orioles and helping complete the four-game sweep.

Eli White gave the Red Sox an early lead with a three-run home run in the second inning, and Payton Tolle delivered one of his best starts of the season, striking out 12 while allowing one run over six innings.

“It was an amazing performance by our pitching staff for four days, it was awesome,” Red Sox interim manager Chad Tracy told reporters in Baltimore. “Tolle today was fantastic and the guys coming out of the pen were awesome, Chappy gets the 400th save, can’t say enough about the way we threw the ball this week.”

Chapman’s historic save was his 33rd of the season and his 65th over the past two seasons as a member of the Red Sox. Prior to that point Chapman had 335 saves and might have had an uphill climb to reaching the Hall of Fame, but between reaching 400 and becoming MLB’s all-time leader in strikeouts by a reliever, his chances of reaching Cooperstown have substantially improved.

Of the other eight relievers with 400 saves, all but two who are currently eligible are already in the Hall of Fame.

“It means a lot to me,” Chapman said via interpreter Carlos Villoria Benítez during a postgame interview with NESN’s Jahmai Webster. “That was one of my personal goals for this season and when I look throughout my career there were moments that I thought I wasn’t going to be able to get to this goal, and thank God I was able to do it today.”

One of the hallmarks of any good baseball team is taking advantage when the opposing club gifts you an extra out. Gunnar Henderson did so with two outs in the top of the second, booting a routine grounder and extending what would have otherwise been an unremarkable scoreless inning, and the Red Sox made him pay.

With two men on, White hit an 1-0 slider 384 feet over the left-field fence for a three-run home run. The homer put the Red Sox up 3-1 after the Orioles initially took a first-inning lead on an RBI double by Christian Encarnacion-Strand, and it extended White’s recent hot streak since taking on a more prominent role while Ceddanne Rafaela battles his quad strain.

Since the start of the Seattle Mariners series this past Monday White has recorded a hit in all six games he’s played, going 6 for 17 with the homer, three doubles and eight RBI.

“Big swing today,” Tracy said. “I thought we did a great job early, we had some other opportunities, we could have scored more, but the three-run homer was huge.”

White’s home run was one of only two hits by the Red Sox through the first seven innings, but Tolle made sure the 3-1 lead held up.

And with his latest gem, Tolle is steadily putting together one of the best seasons by a Red Sox rookie starting pitcher in club history.

After not originally making the club’s Opening Day roster, Tolle has now made 24 starts and figures to rank among the top finishers in the American League Rookie of the Year vote. Sunday the left-hander was utterly dominant, striking out 12 over six innings while at one point retiring 10 straight batters from the first inning into the fifth.

Tolle struck out the first two batters he faced in each of the first three innings, had multiple punch outs in each of the first five and held the Orioles to one run on four hits with no walks.

He also followed last Monday’s comical on-field hug with another humorous episode, slipping and falling after a pitch and performing a push-up on the mound before getting up and striking out Pete Alonso to end the third.

“He’s having fun out there,” Tracy said. “Some guys are very intense, lock in when they start and he has to have fun, that’s what makes him go. He’s enjoying himself out there.”

Tolle’s ERA for the season now stands at 3.15, and with 159 strikeouts on the season Tolle moved past Ken Brett (155) for the second highest strikeout total by a Red Sox rookie. Tolle now trails only Daisuke Matsuzaka, who came to Boston after a decorated international career in Japan and struck out 201 batters during his first MLB season in 2007.

Among AL rookies this year Tolle’s body of work trails only Cleveland’s Parker Messick, who boasts a 2.53 ERA, 173 strikeouts in 167 innings and 5.4 Wins Above Replacement. Messick is among the top contenders for both the AL Rookie of the Year and AL Cy Young Award.

Once Tolle was done Erik Miller came on and posted a scoreless seventh inning. Jovani Moran followed with a scoreless eighth, setting the table for Chapman to come on in the ninth. Chapman allowed a one-out single to Alonso but struck out Coby Mayo and Christian Encarnacion-Strand to end the game, hitting 101 mph on his final pitch to lock down save No. 400.

“I’m blessed to be along for the ride to be honest with you,” Tracy said of Chapman’s milestone. “In the middle of April I didn’t think I’d be standing here watching Aroldis Chapman save his 400th game and be able to be there up close and personal to witness it, I’m blessed just to be able to watch it. And now that I’ve gotten to know him and see the work ethic, it’s pretty cool.”

The Red Sox (79-65) have now won four straight to move back to a season-high 14 games over .500, and the Orioles have now dropped six in a row to fall to the back of the pack of remaining AL playoff contenders.

Boston now opens a three-game series against the last-place Los Angeles Angels at Fenway Park on Monday, with the Labor Day matinee set to begin at 1:35 p.m. ET.

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