Sale ‘better’ with a change of Sox
CHICAGO — The year before the White Sox traded Chris Sale to the Red Sox, pitching coach Don Cooper and Sale came up with a plan that targeted peak performance in October, should the White Sox make the playoffs. They called it the hybrid. They didn’t want to completely abandon Sale’s ability to throw fastballs in the upper-90s, but the idea was that if his stuff was a little more hittable, it could have a two-pronged effect, both saving him innings and keeping his arm fresh late in the season.
“It was done on purpose,” Cooper said yesterday, one day before Sale pitches against his former team for the first time. “In his back pocket, he has 95, 96, 97 miles per hour, but to flip a sinker in there at 90, 90-or-more, and get a groundball somewhere, there’s a lot of value in that, too.
“It was kind of a risk. But I thought, talking to Chris in the offseason, it was the way to go, because to be able to sustain 95 and above for 32, 33 starts and the playoffs, that’s not easy. Also, to be able to go longer in the game, he was striking out a lot of guys for us and he’d wind up going six innings. We needed to lengthen that to seven and eight.
“So that’s why we went hybrid, and we got the seven and eight innings out of him as a constant.”
His fastball velocity hit an all-time low, averaging 93.6 mph on the season, down from 95.6 mph the year before. His strikeout rate dropped from 11.8 per nine to 9.3 per nine.
But the end result hardly changed. He was equally effective in the second half, showing no signs of improved performance due to saved arm strength.
With the Red Sox, the hybrid approach apparently has gone out the window. Sale is averaging 95.4 mph on his fastball and striking out a career-high 12.5 batters per nine innings. His ERA is a sparkling 2.34.
An All-Star five years running, he’s been even better in Boston.
“Oh, there’s no question he’s getting better,” Cooper said. “Listen, for his time here, he put up Hall of Fame numbers, other than maybe the win column. If you do that for a handful or more years, well, he’s going to put himself in position to possibly be a Hall of Famer someday if he stays healthy and I think he will. Boston’s going to have a chance to score him some runs. We had some difficulty doing that in the time he was here. But he still went out there and did his thing every five days — strikeouts, walks being that they are, he’s aggressive. Comes out and pours strikes. He’s one of the best pitchers I’ve ever had or ever seen.”
Cooper first began coaching Sale when he arrived in the big leagues as a 21-year-old reliever in 2010. It took less than two years before Cooper knew Sale should be in the rotation.
“When he was in the bullpen, he was well on his way to being the baddest-(expletive) lefty in the league,” Cooper said.
Sale said his relationship with Cooper is still growing, and he appreciates hearing what his old coach has to say from afar.
Pitching here will be weird, Sale said, and he’s a little nervous, but “more so than anything, I just want to let everyone know that I appreciated my time here. There’s a couple of blips on the radar amongst a lot of really good times. More times than not, it was great here, and I appreciated it.”
Sale figured it’d be a hard time adjusting to Boston.
“The transition was nice,” he said. “It wasn’t as crazy as I thought it was going to be. There were a lot of things going in to coming to the Red Sox that have made it a little bit easier for me. Having spring training at my house (in Fort Myers) was nice, being in my own community and my own comfort zone. Just how well I was received by the players, the staff, everybody over here, Boston’s been nothing but great to me since the moment I got over here. I’m very appreciative. I know that helped soften the blow and smooth the transition.”
In Chicago, he’s remembered as an all-time great.
“There’s always a discussion. Who’s the best? Who’s this? Who’s that?” Cooper said. “All I know is he’s got to be in the top 10 of anybody on the planet.”