In Pedro’s pantheon
Sale first-half numbers amaze
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Live by the sword, die by the sword, the saying goes.
And when you’re Chris Sale, you live by throwing strikes, and you die by throwing them.
Last night, he threw two too many to the wrong spot and paid the ultimate price: a solo home run to Peter Bourjos in the fifth and a two-run home run by Wilson Ramos in the sixth that made all the difference in a 4-1 victory for the Rays over the Red Sox.
But as “deaths” go, Sale’s is a myth, more of a lost skirmish in a war he is winning by every measure against his peers.
Last night Sale broke Pedro Martinez’ 1999 mark with his 12th 10-plus strikeout game before the All-Star break.
This at the end of a first half of his first Red Sox season that has been mostly remarkable if only for the justifiable comparisons he is drawing to Martinez’ otherworldly 1999 season.
Martinez had issued only 24 walks in his first 18 starts before he started the AllStar Game.
Sale has walked just 22, none last night.
And pitching with his club trailing 2-1, he was not about to pitch around Ramos, a good hitter who had already knocked in the first run of the game with a double back in the fourth.
But to paraphrase Martinez, all Sale had to do after the game was sneer, “Who is Wilson Ramos?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever considered pitching around anybody,” said Sale with a perceptible strain of disdain at the notion of being a bit careful around Ramos. No, that’s not Sale’s style. Most starts, that works out more than just fine. Last night, it didn’t. “The one thing with Chris, you look at the walk totals, he’s going to be around the plate,” said manager John Farrell. “If guys are aggressive against him, they may end up getting a pitch that’s on the plate because he attacks everyone. He’s going to use a constant mix, but a couple of first pitches, particularly to Ramos, were the key.”
And Ramos held the key last night.
“Fastball, trying to get ahead,” said Sale of the first pitch to Ramos. “He had other plans.”
The fastball was a strike, of course, in a location Sale is not planning to revisit any time in any of our lifetimes.
“I haven’t checked, and I probably won’t so I can sleep tonight,” said Sale. “It stinks. You don’t want to do that. It just kind of sucked the energy out of us. That’s on me. I have to do better right there, especially later on in the game.”
It’s fun to compare Martinez’ first half from 1999 with Sale’s. There are an awful lot of similarities, even if Martinez wins by a clear head. Martinez’ ERA was at 2.10 before the All-Star break — it tumbled to 2.07 by season’s end — while Sale is at 2.75. Martinez threw five more innings, 1322⁄ 3, and struck out six more, 184, than Sale has.
Sale has given up 11 fewer hits, 93, than Martinez, but a simple dissection of those hits reveals where their biggest differences lie, and this is where Ramos’ home run reenters the narrative.
Martinez allowed 29 extrabase hits, while Sale has allowed 30. That would be a wash, if it weren’t.
Martinez allowed 24 doubles, five more than Sale has but look at the home runs: Martinez gave up five blasts, and all of them were solo shots.
Sale has allowed 11 home runs. Seven of them are solo shots. The other four were two-run shots.
Martinez and Sale share many qualities.
Both come from the gunslinging school of pitching, which essentially means they are going to challenge each and every hitter with their best stuff.
That means throwing lots and lots of strikes.
Martinez’ strikes 18 years ago were just slightly better than Sale’s this season.
To compare the two without forcing it is an opportunity to cherish.
Just because Sale didn’t come out on top last night takes away nothing from what he accomplished in this first half.
“Stellar,” said Farrell of Sale’s first half. “You look at the way he’s pitched deep into ballgames. The competitiveness. The numbers speak for themselves. I mean he’s on a historic run here the way he’s gone through this first half. He’s led our pitching staff. He’s been a leader on our team. So everything we could have hoped for when we acquired him, he has certainly lived up to that.”