Ring up this Sale
Simply must-see right now
This spring in Boston, Chris Sale is the best show in town.
He is scheduled to take the stage today at Fenway Park. Buy a ticket. Go and see him in person. You will get a feel for what it was like watching Roger Clemens in 1986, or Pedro Martinez in 1999, or Josh Beckett in 2007 — before all those carbohydrates. Sale will make it rain before it pours.
Boston is blessed with a bounty of maestros. Conductors like Tom Brady, Isaiah Thomas and Keith Lockhart create a whole that seems mathematically impossible based on the sum of their parts.
Sale cannot do that. He is a soloist. All he does is pitch. Yet, he brings down the house no matter how poorly the rest of the band plays.
The Red Sox must score at least once whenever Sale starts for him to get a win. That is often too much to ask this season.
What Sale has done this season, put in basketball terminology, is to score 40 nearly every time he walks on the court. In Brady’s world, he passes for more than 400 yards and posts a 147.2 passer rating on a regular basis. If Sale were with the Boston Pops, Symphony Hall would feature a “This Building For Sale” banner every fifth day. Look at his 73 strikeouts, 1.92 ERA and fierce 0.79 WHIP, and when six straight games with 10 or more strikeouts are thrown in, you realize the Sox have a badass presence on the mound not seen at Fenway Park for 10 years.
Sale has eclipsed the two Cy Young Award winners on Dave Dombrowski’s roster. Rick Porcello pitched last night. David Price (remember him?) throws a rehab start in Pawtucket tomorrow weather permitting — or throws 75 pitches indoors.
The rave and hyperbole from Martinez have legitimized Sale’s stature. It is clear Sale’s methods mirror Pedro’s madness.
Sale is pitching better than anyone in the American League. And he is doing it with flair and a scare that makes any start extra-unordinary. We don’t need sabermetrics to tell us opposing hitters are just a tad baffled/bewildered/terrified when Sale pitches.
It was the harmless — yet devastating — act of throwing down low and behind Manny Machado that definitively set Sale apart from any Red Sox starter of the past decade. Sale said afterward he was “not losing any sleep tonight” after the Machado pitch or his profane reaction. That has become the signature quote for the Red Sox season. Not since 2007 have the Red Sox featured a starting pitcher who could throw nine innings of controlled, 90+ mph, terrorinducing nastiness.
Any punk can throw a beanball then claim it got away. The difference between planting a fastball into the side of someone’s helmet and grazing a batter’s ear is the difference between Matt Barnes and Pedro Martinez. The brushback is a necessary weapon to keep batters honest. Throwing low and behind someone on purpose is baseball’s drive-by without bullets. It sends a menacing message without injury or even a suspension.
Sale’s best pitches this year, however, have been over the corner of the plate. Catch them if you can. Hit them if you dare.
Sale is must-see NESN TV during a Red Sox season teetering on the verge of becoming filler between Celtics playoff games and the countdown until Brady and his Madden Curse-Busters begin their “2017 Exterminate the Universe/Blitz for Six Tour.”
Pay Chris Sale a visit today. Enjoy the show.