SALE ON RIGHT ROAD
Sox’ map to playoffs should benefit ace
The Red Sox staggered into the postseason last year, a collection of tired, disgruntled ballplayers who had it up to here with one-foot-out-the-door manager John Farrell and played like it.
Who could forget this: In the Houston Astros’ fourgame Division Series stretching exercise, the Red Sox’ starting pitchers worked a
total of 111⁄3 innings.
The Iron Man of that group was Game 1 starter Chris Sale, who lasted five innings (plus two batters in the sixth) and was the pitcher of record in the Sox’ 8-2 loss.
Now unless the 2018 Red Sox are playing down-and-dirty baseball right through the end of the regular season in order to avoid the oneand-done wild card game, Sale will again be on the mound in Game 1 of the Division Series. And, yes, that’s a long, long time from now. As Sox manager Alex Cora said yesterday, “It’s too early for me to get all the way over there. We’re just mapping out the first part of the second half of the season.”
But the planning Cora is doing now — or, as he puts it, the mapping out of the first part of the second half of the season
— is going to make it easier for the first-year manager to lean on Sale if the Sox are playing meaningful games in late September.
Better yet — and pay attention here, because it’s important — everything the Red Sox are doing with Sale this season is designed with the postseason in mind.
It’s probably a reach to put it out there that the Sox botched it last year with Sale, since, after all, they were busily botching so many other things. His 2141⁄3 innings weren’t as many as he threw for the Chicago White Sox in 2016 (2261⁄3), but he threw a lot of pitches en route to registering a leagueleading 308 strikeouts.
Through 20 starts in 2017, Sale threw 2,196 pitches in 1411⁄3 innings.
Through 20 starts in 2018, Sale has thrown 2,025 pitches in 129 innings.
His fastball averaged 9497 mph his first 13 starts. In his 14th start, he touched 101 mph for the first time in his career. And his fastball has been in the 98-99 mph range since.
Think that might help in October?
The Red Sox came into the season recognizing they needed to chill a little with Chris Sale, and they are doing just that. Speaking with the media before last night’s Sox-Blue Jays game at Fenway, Cora disclosed that Sale will pitch the third game after the AllStar break. With Sale having pitched Wednesday night, this means he’ll get 10 days off before Cora’s secondhalf map takes him to a July 22 start against the Detroit Tigers at Comerica Park.
“With all the off days that we have, this is going to keep him sharp,” Cora said. “And at the same time we’re going to steal a few days.”
Yes, there’s an All-Star Game appearance in the middle of the map, and Sox fans would love to see Sale get the starting nod Tuesday night at Nationals Park. It would be Sale’s third straight All-Star Game start.
The urge here is to roll out a big bowl of so-what, the idea being that Sale would be better off missing the game. But players are a lot more into being in the All-Star Game than they were in, say, the ’80s, and, anyway, he’d be pitching on five days of rest.
Cora went so far as to say “one inning is not going to hurt him. Actually it’s going to benefit us.” Of course: It would be tantamount to doing a throwing session between starts.
But does Cora want Sale to start the All-Star Game? In addressing that question yesterday, he made two things quite clear: 1) that decision will be made by Astros manager A.J. Hinch, and 2) Cora, like anyone with a brain, is ticked off that Tampa Bay Rays lefty Blake Snell (12-4, 2.09 ERA) wasn’t named to the American League squad.
“Whatever A.J. decides,” Cora said. “There’s a few candidates . . . I don’t know, is Snell in it already? Not yet?
“We’ve been talking about it,” he said. “(Luis) Severino has been great. Sale has been great.” Pause.
“Snell . . . has been great. So we’ll see.”
It doesn’t sound like Cora cares either way if Sale starts. His main interest is in seeing him pitch either the first or second inning, all the better, he reasons, to keep him on his routine: stretch, warm up, pause for the national anthem, pitch.
In the grand old tradition of the greasy wheel getting the grease, we’ve been obsessing too much over David Price and his penchant for yelling at clouds. Don’t get me wrong: A healthy, contributing Price greatly increases the Sox’ chances of winning a World Series. But he’s not the ace.
Chris Sale is the ace, and the Red Sox are mapping out his trip to October.