Sale set to take hill for Bosox

Chris Sale would rather talk about the ring he can win as a World Series champion instead of the almost certainly nonexistent navel ring that — he maintains with a straight face — scratched him from a start in the last round.

The Red Sox left-hander will belly up to the mound to start Game 1 against Los Angeles tonight, 10 days after his last outing and nine after he was hospitalized with what the team called a “stomach illness.”

Sale joked — we think — that it was from a piercing gone bad, and he kept up the ruse back in Boston.

“I’m not going to spill all of my secrets,” he said.

Clayton Kershaw is scheduled to start for the Dodgers, giving baseball a matchup of marquee lefties from a pair of iconic franchises at two of the oldest ballparks in the majors.

The Red Sox, who won a franchise-record 108 games and their third straight AL East crown, are going for their fourth title in 14 years; the Dodgers, who lost to the Astros in the Series last year, will try for their first championship since 1988.

“It’s going to be rocking. This place is going to be obviously going crazy,” Sale said. “We’ve all been waiting for this. And our fans, too.”

The 2017 AL Cy Young runner-up — a favorite for this year’s award before arm problems down the stretch — Sale never missed a start through the end of July, when he went on the disabled list with what the team called “mild left shoulder inflammation.”

He came back for one start in August, but then shut it down again as the Red Sox, who had a double-digit lead in the AL East, coasted into the playoffs.

After sitting out a month, he threw 26, 42, 73 and 92 pitches in four September starts to rebuild his arm strength for the postseason. He won Game 1 of the AL Division Series against the Yankees and came on in relief in the Game 4 clincher, then got knocked around in the opener of the ALCS against Houston.