Good. Now for the but . . .
Based on what we’ve seen so far, through four starts as a member of the Boston Red Sox, Sale might be the next-best thing. And considering that the next-best thing in my 40 years of following the Red Sox was Roger Clemens’s magnificent 1986 season, I think we can live with it if that’s what Sale proves to be.
I know, I know, that’s probably an unattainable bar to clear, as great as Sale is every fifth day. Clemens went 24-4 that season with a 2.48 ERA, completing 10 of his 33 starts, striking out 238 in 254 innings, including 20 batters in one legendary performance against Gorman Thomas’s Seattle Mariners, and winning the American League Cy Young and Most Valuable Player awards.
That was the year Roger became the Rocket.
If Sale can even approach what Clemens achieved during his ascent that season, it would be a year to remember permanently, one that would put at least one major award on his mantel. Maybe it’s the fresh memory of Sale’s brilliance Thursday, when he threw 80 of 102 pitches for strikes and struck out 13 in eight scoreless innings against the Blue Jays, but I believe he is capable of approaching it.
He’s off to a better start this year than Clemens in 1986. Through his first four starts, Sale has a 0.91 ERA, with 42 strikeouts, 6 walks, and just 3 runs allowed in 29⅔ innings. He has just one win, but those will pile up once the best hitters in the Red Sox lineup — Mookie Betts, Xander Bogaerts, Andrew Benintendi, Dustin Pedroia, and Hanley Ramirez — get around to awakening in unison. And they will.
Through his first four starts of the ’86 season, Clemens had a 1.62 ERA, with 39 strikeouts, 10 walks, and 6 earned runs in 33⅓ innings. He had four wins, and the fourth of those wins was the 20-K game.
(For the record, Pedro had a 0.84 ERA through his first four starts in ’98, with 44 Ks and 7 walks in 32 innings. Decent first impression.)
Now, Sale is not especially a revelation on the mound; he’s been on the short list, and maybe the first name on that list, of the best pitchers in the American League since 2012, when he broke through with a 17-win, 3.05-ERA, 5.9 WAR season as a 23-year-old with the White Sox. He has finished in the top six in Cy Young voting in each of the past five years.
But it’s a treat to actually watch this. He is as fun and dominant as his statistics suggest, especially when he’s unleashing that mean-spirited wipeout slider that Thursday looked like it was intent on sending Jose Bautista into midgame retirement.
What is a revelation to those of us who aren’t used to watching him pitch every fifth day is his attitude. I suppose we should have known he had an edge given the carnage he committed on the White Sox’ throwback jerseys last season, but it’s been a blast to see how he carries his intensity to the mound.
Like Pedro and Clemens — and Josh Beckett and Jon Lester, too — he takes offense if a hitter makes good contact, let alone reaches base. We dig an ace with a mean streak around here.
Sale also deserves credit for how he handled the controversy surrounding John Farrell’s decision to pull him after eight innings, a move that appeared to backfire when Craig Kimbrel gave up a solo home run to Kendry Morales. (The Sox won anyway when Betts again proved to be a manager’s best friend with his three-run double in the top of the 10th.)
Sale said he wanted to stay out there “10 times out of 9,’’ but was quick to laud how electric Kimbrel’s stuff has been lately, then essentially said, “We won, and that’s all I care about.”
That graciousness is a pretty good way to win over a fan base . . . you know, if his electrifying pitching performances weren’t already doing it.
No, Chris Sale is not Pedro. He’s merely the most every-fifth-day fun we’ve had since.
Follow Chad Finn on Twitter at @GlobeChadFinn.
