A Bronx fail by Sale
Ace can’t stop Sox doldrums
NEW YORK — At this point, even Chris Sale seems to be losing steam, and any momentum the Red Sox generated last month is long gone.
Last night was the latest indignity, a 9-2 blowout to the Yankees, a secondplace team that regularly outpitched, outhit and outplayed the Red Sox this weekend.
The Sox lost three-of-four games in this series, and the only starting pitcher who kept them from being swept was Doug Fister, the nominal No. 5 man who is only in the rotation because David Price is hurt.
Sale should have been the great equalizer, but the Red Sox have been no better with him on the mound. In their past 16 games, the Red Sox are 7-9, and three of those losses belong to Sale.
“He’s set such a high bar for himself,” manager John Farrell said. “Not only this year but throughout the course of his career, and certainly this season the way he’s pitched. We’ve got a couple of off days that we’ll take advantage of to get him some extra rest as we would with our entire rotation. The short of this is this: We’ve got to collectively do a better job all the way around.”
The Red Sox still have a 31⁄2-game lead in the division, but that’s exactly what it was at the All-Star break, meaning they’ve wiped out most of the headway they generated by winning 13of-15 immediately after the trade deadline.
As the Red Sox have slipped, so has their ace.
No longer an overwhelming favorite to win the Cy Young Award — Cleveland’s Corey Kluber has a lower ERA and a better WHIP — Sale has lost three of his past four starts, and last night he did not even last through the fifth inning.
Sale allowed three home runs for the first time this season, and Farrell pulled him after a one-out single in the fifth.
“Just gotta be better than that,” Sale said. “Especially knowing the ballpark we’re playing in. Just gotta be better at executing twostrike pitches than I did (last night).”
Farrell mentioned the idea of extra rest at least partially because Sale has a history of fading down the stretch. He has a career 2.97 ERA, but it’s 3.79 in September. Is he feeling fatigued? “Don’t worry about me,” he said. “I’m doing alright.”
Sale was out of the game when it became a real mess in the sixth as four different relievers — Joe Kelly, Robby Scott, Addison Reed and Matt Barnes — combined to allow six runs.
Along the way, pitching coach Carl Willis was thrown out of the game for arguing balls and strikes. He felt ball three to Gary Sanchez should have been strike two — and he seemed to have a strong case — and the very next pitch was a sharp ground ball to third, where Rafael Devers nearly made an inning-saving play.
The would-be third out was overturned by video review, and the flood gates opened from there. Threerun double by Starlin Castro. Two-run home run by Aaron Judge. And a contest became a rout.
But that wasn’t the difference in a win and a loss. The difference was Sale being outpitched by Luis Severino.
Sale has seven losses this season, and three of them have come in the past twoand-a-half weeks.
This time, he allowed a Chase Headley home run in the third inning, then backto-back home runs to Matt Holliday and Todd Frazier in the fourth. Headley and Holliday also went deep on Saturday.
Severino, meanwhile, retired 16 of the first 18 batters he faced, and even when the Sox scored against him, it was only because of two errors and a passed ball.
Through Severino’s six innings, the Red Sox had just two hits, no walks, nine strikeouts and an unearned run. By the time Severino was out of the game, the Sox were out of hope.
There was a time this season when, even as things were going poorly, the Red Sox could count on Sale to give them a chance. That hasn’t been a given lately, and the Sox’ record shows it.
Instead of burying the Yankees this series, the Red Sox let them close the gap.
“They cut into it a little bit,” Farrell said. “We’ve got to go home and regroup, bottom line. Missed opportunities, we can’t go back. We just have to take care of business (today) and beyond.”