Why is the StringBuilder chaining pattern sb.append(x).append(y) faster than regular sb.append(x); sb.append(y)?

I have a microbenchmark that shows very strange results:

@BenchmarkMode(Mode.Throughput)
@Fork(1)
@State(Scope.Thread)
@Warmup(iterations = 10, time = 1, timeUnit = TimeUnit.SECONDS, batchSize = 1000)
@Measurement(iterations = 40, time = 1, timeUnit = TimeUnit.SECONDS, batchSize = 1000)
public class Chaining {

    private String a1 = "111111111111111111111111";
    private String a2 = "222222222222222222222222";
    private String a3 = "333333333333333333333333";

    @Benchmark
    public String typicalChaining() {
        return new StringBuilder().append(a1).append(a2).append(a3).toString();
    }

    @Benchmark
    public String noChaining() {
        StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
        sb.append(a1);
        sb.append(a2);
        sb.append(a3);
        return sb.toString();
    }
}

I'm expecting the results of both tests to be the same or at least very close. However, the difference is almost 5x:

# Run complete. Total time: 00:01:41

Benchmark                  Mode  Cnt      Score     Error  Units
Chaining.noChaining       thrpt   40   8538.236 ± 209.924  ops/s
Chaining.typicalChaining  thrpt   40  36729.523 ± 988.936  ops/s

Does anybody know how that is possible?