Sale’s finish lost Cy Young
And cost Sox possibly more
The Red Sox need to find out how to get Chris Sale to finish a season like he starts it. A plaque for Sale and a trophy for the Red Sox are at stake.
Having already contributed to the Red Sox’ early exit from the playoffs last month with a poor start in Game 1 of the Division Series, last night Sale’s lateseason drop-off led directly to him falling short yet again in an American League Cy Young vote.
In mid-August, the award appeared to be Sale’s to lose.
Lose it he did, however, with a six-week “skid” that sent his other-worldly numbers into more mortal territory. In the end, Sale’s numbers were still great but not quite as great as Cleveland’s Corey Kluber, who took home the award last night.
Kluber won it decisively, capturing 28 of 30 first-place votes, with Sale snaring the other two.
Sale’s been a perennial contender in the Cy Young voting every year he’s been a starter. He’s placed no lower than sixth since 2012, and his second-place finish last night was his best.
Sale wasn’t robbed of the Cy Young. He did have a legitimate case for winning but the voters found Kluber’s season far more compelling.
Sale’s strengths were that he made three more starts (32) and pitched 102⁄ more
3 innings than Kluber, plus he had 43 more strikeouts (308) and pitched in a tougher division than Kluber.
Kluber topped Sale in ERA by a healthy margin (2.25 to 2.90) and WHIP (.869 to .970), and opponents’ OPS (.556 to .603), opponents’ batting average (.193 to .208) and strikeout-to-walk ratio (7.36 to 7.16).
It’s true Kluber didn’t
pitch in the AL East, but when gauging how he fared against winning teams compared to Sale, Kluber fared better in nearly all categories, while Sale racked up his best games against some of the worst teams.
Wh a t worked in Kluber’s favor is that he finished strong, leaving a far better lasting impression than Sale, who got hit much harder than usual over the final six weeks of the season.
Entering mid-August, Sale’s record was 14-4 with a 2.51 ERA. Over his last eight starts, he went 3-4 with a 4.30 ERA.
His monthly numbers bear out his fade as well: He posted a 0.779 WHIP in July, while in August and September it kept rising, 1.054 and then 1.345. Same with opponents’ OPS. In July it was at .500. In August and September, it soared up to .620 and then .875.
That both Sale and the Red Sox faded at the end was hardly coincidental.
Sale’s fate is something the Red Sox are going to have to figure out, because he is their best pitcher and is obviously one of the best in the entire game. They got 41⁄ sterling
2 months out of him. They need seven months from him — April through October.
Sale led all pitchers in the big leagues with 2141⁄ innings
3 this year, and while the Red Sox never failed to give Sale any additional rest when possible, they also never gave him an extended break in the middle of the season. Keeping the Yankees out of first place was deemed more important than conserving Sale’s strength.
Maybe they ought to revisit that line of thinking.
Compiling strikeouts is a more taxing activity than generating outs via contact. More pitches are required, and more pitches create wear and tear. Sale’s strikeout total and strikeout rate were the highest of his career. Perhaps the team should ask him to try to reduce his strikeouts by changing his pitch mix to favor more contact from a two-seam sinking fastball that generates groundballs versus his typical reliance on four-seam fastball and nasty slider.
It’s worth a shot. Given that throughout his career Sale has pitched worse in the second half than the first, it’s clear the team needs to try something different. The data strongly suggests that Sale is getting older, not younger.
The results also showed that Sale got hammered for seven runs in five innings of Game 1 of the Division Series against the Astros, an outing that essentially doomed any slim chance the Sox had against the eventual world champions.
Bottom line: Sale was not reliably nasty at the end. His stuff became less nasty and his ability to hit corners suffered as well at the end of the season.
“We haven’t sat down and talked to Chris about it as of yet. I think it’s something we’re looking at from an internal perspective, but realistically it’s a challenge. It’s something we need to do, but it wasn’t something we weren’t cognizant of last year,” said Red Sox president Dave Dombrowski.
Sale had a spectacular 2017 season. Had he finished stronger, he would have won the Cy Young last night.
More importantly, a stronger finish from Sale might have helped the Red Sox wind up with a far more important piece of hardware than a Cy Young plaque.