Chris Sale has been stellar for the Red Sox. But he’s not getting any help.
The Red Sox aren’t giving their newly acquired ace much room to work with.
In his first four games, Chris Sale has been objectively stellar — allowing just three total runs and striking out 42 batters in nearly 30 innings of work. Among pitchers who have thrown at least 20 innings so far this season, Sale has the third lowest WHIP (0.71) and the fourth lowest ERA (0.91).
And yet, he has only one win to show for it. Because when Sale is pitching, the opponents’ bats aren’t the only ones going cold.
Sale gave up a total of three runs in his first three starts. However, the Red Sox — who have otherwise averaged 4.3 runs per games — scored a total of three runs while Sale was on the mound. The thus-far squalid run support more than explains Sale’s somewhat misleading 1-1 record.
The Red Sox are averaging 1.8 runs per game in Chris Sale’s four starts, 4.9 runs per game when any other pitcher starts
— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) April 20, 2017
Thursday’s game against the Toronto Blue Jays was another quintessential example.
After striking out Blue Jays slugger Jose Bautista for the fourth time in the game, Sale went into the dugout having logged eight nearly unhittable innings. He only allowed zero runs on four hits (all singles). Eighty of his 102 pitches were strikes. And with 13 total strikeouts, Sale became the first Red Sox pitcher to record two consecutive starts with 12 or more strikeouts since Pedro Martinez in 2001.
But as Sale walked off the Rogers Centre mound for the final time after eight innings of shutout ball, the game was still tied, 0-0.
Sale was momentarily in-line for his second win of the season after Xander Bogaerts’s go-ahead RBI single in the top of the ninth. However those hopes died quickly with Craig Kimbrel’s second pitch.
Fortunately for Red Sox fans, the Boston bats would wake up in the 10th inning. Mookie Betts’s three-run double put the team up 4-1 for good, thus delivering Kimbrel of all people a perhaps undeserved win.
After the game, Sale told reporters that the timing of the team’s offensive awakening showed “the character of this team” and their “will to win.”
“Anybody can sit in a corner and kick themselves and pout about it,” he said. “I think we took the reverse approach and got on it and got after it.”
Ultimately, the Red Sox are 3-1 in games that Sale has started, and his impact has not gone unnoticed.
If I am going to pay money to go see a pitcher right now it would be Chris Sale! The guys brings integrity to the game!
— Pedro Martinez (@45PedroMartinez) April 20, 2017
If only they scored some more runs, Sale might actually get some credit in the box score as well.
