Sale eager to amend for ’17 postseason clunker
BOSTON – Chris Sale waited eight years to make his first postseason start and then another 365 days for a chance to put that memory behind him.
The Red Sox left-hander will start Game 1 of the AL Division Series against the New York Yankees on Friday night, one year after he was bombarded by the championship-bound Houston Astros in his playoff debut.
He’s thought about it. He’s learned from it.
And he wants to make sure he doesn’t make the same mistakes again.
“Last year, obviously, I got my feet wet. Didn’t do too well. But sometimes you learn from the bad more than the good,” Sale said Thursday, a day before the AL East rivals open their best-offive series.
“It happened. I’m not going to run away from it. I don’t think that’s the right thing to do,” he said. “I’m not going to hide from it. You can Google it now, tomorrow and 100 years, and it’s going to be there. I own it. I accept it. And like I said, I’m going to be better. I’m going to go do everything I can to be better. That’s all I can do.”
A seven-time All-Star who was the ace of the White Sox staff before coming to the Red Sox in 2017, Sale had never pitched for a playoff team before starting the opener of Boston’s series against Houston. He gave up seven runs in five innings; he pitched well in an emergency relief appearance in Game 4 but couldn’t keep the Astros from advancing.
On Friday night, Sale will face Yankees lefty J.A. Happ in the first-ever meeting of the teams in the ALDS.
They have not met at all in the postseason since Boston’s epic comeback in the 2004 AL Championship Series before the Red Sox went on to win the World Series and their first title in 86 years.
“This is everything we show up for,” Sale said. “We don’t play the game for anything else. Personal stats, wins in the regular season are obviously what get us here. And winning games and winning the division and having the record and all that. We appreciate it, don’t get me wrong. We worked hard for that. We grinded for that, and we earned it.
“But now is the crunch time,” he said, punctuating his comments by pounding his finger on the table in front of him. “We know what’s ahead of us. And we know what we have to do.”
And what they have to do now is get past their longtime nemesis, a 100-win team that is coming off of a 7-2 victory over the Oakland Athletics in the AL wild-card game. ve on any given day, and roll with it.”