Extra good at last
Sox overcome poor start by Sale to prevail in 15th
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — There will be hours of film review to be conducted by multiple sets of trained eyes to understand what happened with Chris Sale last night, but at the least he avoided taking the loss.
After Sale tossed a clunker, allowing four runs in 52⁄3 innings to the same Tampa
Bay Rays team he had shut down in five previous outings this year, the Red Sox rallied for three runs in the ninth and went on to win, 13-6, in a 15-inning marathon that lasted six hours and five minutes.
Paired with a win by the New York Yankees, the Red Sox advantage in the AL East is still three games.
In the 14th, the Red Sox took their first lead since the first inning, but Brandon Workman served up a home run to Kevin Kiermaier that tied the game and forced another inning.
After Jackie Bradley Jr. walked and Xander Bogaerts singled to start the 15th, Dustin Pedroia hit a grounder that scored Bradley for the go-ahead run on an error by second baseman Brad Miller. The floodgates opened and, after the Sox left men on base to end the ninth, 11th, 12th and 13th innings, they finally preserved a lead by tacking on six more runs in the 15th.
But the most alarming part of the evening happened in the first two hours, when Sale pitched a Jekyll and Hyde game that left plenty of questions about how well he can handle familiar opponents.
It’s been familiarity with the Cleveland Indians and Minnesota Twins that has allowed those teams to hit Sale like few others do. And it was familiarity that may have allowed the Rays to break through against the dominant lefty last night.
Six days earlier, he had shut them down.
This time, though, his sixth start of the year against the Rays, Sale was out of rhythm for most of his start until he walked off the mound with some words for manager John Farrell, who took him out after just 97 pitches.
Sale, who had thrown at least 97 pitches in all but two of his starts this season, had plenty to be upset about.
He can look at the tape and see what he was doing wrong in the first inning, when he walked two batters and allowed one run to score before pitching coach Carl Willis walked out to settle the ace down. Sale induced a groundball for a double play to end the inning.
Sale can look at video of the second and third innings and understand what went right. He was mowing down the Rays then, striking out five in a row, including one strikeout that spun Kiermaier around and caused him to land on his bottom.
And then Sale can try to understand what happened in the fourth, when he threw a dead-red fastball that Wilson Ramos took out of the park for a two-run dinger. Next, the sixth inning, when he left a hanging slider over the heart of the plate for another homer, this one by Adeiny Hechavarria.
When Sale gave up a two-out triple to Peter Bourjos later in the sixth, Farrell walked out of the dugout. Upon noticing him, Sale appeared to say, “I got it. I got it.” Farrell kept on walking and took the ball. Sale shared a few more words with him as he walked off the mound.
One bad start after a string of five good ones against one team might not be cause for concern if the playoffs weren’t right around the corner, and if Sale didn’t have an ERA of 4.25 since the beginning of August.
On the NESN broadcast, former Red Sox catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia wondered if the Indians had identified how Sale might have been tipping his pitches, and if Indians manager Terry Francona had shared that information with his close friend and Rays manager Kevin Cash.
But Sale just threw six scoreless against the Rays last weekend, when he struck out eight. On the season, he had thrown 35 innings with a 2.06 ERA and 57 strikeouts against the Rays before last night.
The Sox offense didn’t do a lot to help until they scored three in the ninth.
Craig Kimbrel struck out the side in the ninth to keep the game alive and Joe Kelly will get praise for the three scoreless innings he pitched to extend the game to the 14th.