Chris Sale Hit Hard By Mariners, Lasts Just 3 Innings On Red Sox Opening Day
By Matthew Geagan, CBS Boston
BOSTON (CBS) -- Red Sox lefty Chris Sale was ace-like in his first inning of the 2019 season. The rest of his Opening Day start did not go so well.
After striking out all three Mariners he faced in the first inning, making them look silly on his famous slider, Sale got rocked the rest of the way for the defending World Series champs. He ended up allowing seven runs over just three innings of work, tied for the most runs he's allowed since donning a Red Sox uniform. The Mariners took him deep three times, and Boston lost their season opener 12-4.
The Red Sox had a 2-0 lead heading into the bottom of the second, but it did not last long. Seattle's Tim Beckham cut that lead in half when he deposited a juicy 93 fastball from Sale into the left field seats. After Sale retired Mallex Smith on a ground-out for the second out of the inning, things only got worse for the left-hander.
He walked No. 8 hitter David Freitas, which you never want to do with two outs. Dee Gordon singled on the very next pitch, and Sale followed by plunking Mitch Haniger to put a Mariner at every base. Domingo Santana roped a double to left field to plate a pair of runs and give Seattle a 3-2 lead, but Haniger was cut down at home trying to score from first for the inning's final out.
Unfortunately for Sale and the Red Sox, the third inning was much, much worse. Encarnacion started things off with a seven-pitch at-bat that ended with him sending an 84 MPH change-up 414 feet to straightaway center field. Sale got Jay Bruce swinging for the inning's first out, but followed that up with a five-pitch walk to Ryan Healy. Up came Beckham, who once again crushed Sale's offering, demolishing a 92 MPH fastball for a two-run blast to center.
Seattle tacked on a sacrifice fly before Sale recorded his final out of the evening. He walked off the mound with his team down 7-2.
Sale's final line for Opening Day: 3 IP, 6 H, 7 ER, 3 HR, 4 K. He needed 76 pitches to get his nine outs on the night. After the game, Sale said he wanted to throw this one in the trash can.
"Obviously, my guys put me in a pretty good situation to succeed and help us win, and I basically did everything I could to mess that up," said a clearly angry Sale. "I just couldn't keep the ball in the ballpark and my command was pretty bad."
Sale said it wasn't just his fastball that lacked command.
"I hit a guy with a slider, too. Change-up was flying out sometime. All-around, pretty bad," he said. "We'll see what we have tomorrow and get back to work."
It's not the way anyone wanted to see Sale start the 2019 season, not after he just signed a four-year extension last week, and especially after he struggled throughout the second half of his 2018 campaign. Thursday night was the first multi-homer game for the lefty since last April, when he gave up a pair of blasts to the Blue Jays in Toronto. That was his only multi-homer game of the season, so maybe Sale was just getting his bad start out of the way early this season.
Sale's fastball was hovering around 94 MPH in the first inning, and he got six swing-and-misses in the frame (five off of his devastating slider). But his fastball dipped to the low 90's from there on out, and he left too many of them over the juicy part of the plate. As Alex Speier of the Boston Globe pointed out, Sale did not get a single swing-and-miss off his fastball for the first time in a Red Sox uniform.
At least this was just Game 1 of 162 for Boston, and hopefully just one of 30+ starts for Sale. He has a full season to make up for Thursday night's stinker, and will try to prove it was just an early-season hiccup five days from now in Oakland.
"I expect a lot out of myself," Sale said. "And a lot better than that."
