Sale made mark on the Red Sox
Covering Chris Sale for seven years was an interesting experience.
He was an intensely private person, careful never to share too much about his family or friends. Sale also was guarded about injuries, once concocting a story about irritation from a bellybutton ring causing a still-unexplained hospital stay during the 2018 postseason.
But ask about how he pitched on a particular day and it was unfiltered honesty. No outside critic was tougher on Sale than he was on himself and he never ducked reporters after poor starts. The lefthander also was a good influence on younger teammates with how intensely he prepared.
Sale was as good as it gets his first two seasons with the Red Sox before an assortment of injuries limited him to 56 starts over five seasons with a 4.16
ERA. His career ERA prior to that was 2.89.
“It was nothing short of a disaster the last few years there,” Sale said.
Maybe it was inevitable given his slender frame and elastic-man mechanics, but Sale helped deliver a championship and was a member of three playoff teams.
He worked hard to overcome the injuries, coming back last season with diminished velocity to make nine starts for a last-place team.
Sale allowed two earned runs on eight hits with 19 strikeouts over 16 innings in his final three starts, selling the Braves on the idea that he had something left.
That led to his being traded for infield prospect Vaughn Grissom.
Atlanta should be a good fit. Sale is likely to slot into the the rotation behind Spencer Strider and Max Fried
and ahead of Charlie Morton.
The Braves were the highest-scoring team in the game last season and Sale will like living closer to Florida. He certainly likes his new contract. The Braves tore up Sale’s old deal and signed him to a two-year, $38 million extension with $17 million coming from the Red Sox as part of the trade. Sale will make $16 million in the coming season and $22 million in 2025.
His $10 million deferral for 2024 is gone, as is the option for ’25. Sale now gets $38 million straight up over two seasons. His luxury-tax hit for 2024 is $19 million with the Sox picking up $17 million.
It seems a little strange for Atlanta to sign Sale to a new contract given his injury history. But president of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos liked the idea of having Sale locked up for two seasons.
The Braves come to Fenway Park for a two-game series starting June 4 and Sale deserves an ovation.
A few other observations on the Red Sox:
■ All that matters is whether he pitches well. But Lucas Giolito came across as a person hoping to make a fresh start in Boston when he spoke to reporters over Zoom this past week.
“What makes sense for me is going somewhere where I know I’m going to be comfortable and know I’m going to get better,” he said.
Giolito had a 4.19 ERA from 201621. It’s 4.89 over 63 starts since with a 1.37 WHIP and 65 homers allowed over 346 innings.
At 29, he’s a good candidate for a resurgence.
“I got into some bad funks. I’d say mechanically, mentally,” Giolito said. “This offseason I’ve been getting back to basics.”
Giolito also played for three teams over a span of 37 days last season while going through a painful divorce.
Beyond baseball, Boston makes sense because his parents live near Albany, N.Y., and can drive in for games.
“They’ll be coming out a lot,” Giolito said. “It’ll be a really fun time. I’m looking forward to getting to know the city better, the different neighborhoods.”
Giolito’s parents were television actors with long careers. Two uncles also are in show business. His late grandfather, Warren Frost, had a recurring role in “Seinfeld” as the father of Susan
Ross, George Costanza’s doomed fiancée. He was in five episodes.
No word if Giolito has a cabin.
■ The Red Sox finished off their international signing class with a few additions in November and December. That group included Charlie Zink ,an 18-year-old righthander from Curacao who agreed to a bonus of $70,000.
He is not related to Charlie Zink ,a knuckleballer who was in the Sox organization from 2002-09. This Charlie Zink is 6 feet 5 inches and has touched 95 miles per hour with his fastball.
The Sox see him as a reliever who could eventually get to 100 m.p.h. They spotted him at a camp in Medellin, Colombia.
The original Charlie Zink appeared in only one major league game, drawing a start against Texas at Fenway Park on Aug, 12, 2008. He was handed a 10-0 lead in the first inning and allowed eight runs on 11 hits and a walk over the next 4‚ innings.
The Rangers took a 16-14 lead in the seventh inning before the Sox rallied to a 19-17 victory.
■ Bet you didn’t know that the last Red Sox player to appear in all 162 games in a season was 35-year-old Bill Buckner in 1985. He started every game at first base and played all but 21 innings in the field.
In the years since, only Don Baylor (160 games in 1986), Mo Vaughn (161 games in 1996), and Dustin Pedroia
(160 games in 2013) have played 160 or more in a season for the Sox.
Baylor was a designated hitter who played only 125 innings in the field that season. Vaughn had 15 games as DH in ‘96. Pedroia didn’t have any.
Only four big leaguers appeared in all 162 games last season: Matt Olson, Marcus Semien, Juan Soto, and Eugenio Suárez.
As is the case with most managers,
Alex Cora believes occasional days off are needed to get the most out of players.
So who’s the next Buckner? Probably not anybody on the roster at the moment. Rafael Devers could do it, but he’s unlikely to fight Cora to stay in the lineup.
Maybe it’ll be Roman Anthony or
Marcelo Mayer in a few years.
■ Per RedSox.com, Giolito will wear No. 54, Grissom has No. 5, and Tyler O’Neill has No. 17.
That’s a new number for Giolito, who had 27 at two of his previous stops. O’Neill would be the first Sox outfielder with 17 since Adrian Brown for nine games in 2003.