It's a Sale Day for Red Sox
BOSTON -- For the first time since last October, the Red Sox are getting a "Sale Day" on Tuesday. Chris Sale will make his first start of the season as the Red Sox continue their four-game series against the Tampa Bay Rays at Tropicana Field.
Sale last pitched for Boston in Game 5 of the ALCS against the Houston Astros -- 265 days ago. The lefty will make his long-awaited debut Tuesday night after being sidelined by a rib cage fracture ahead of spring training.
It has been a long road back for the 33-year-old Sale. He made four rehab starts in the minors over the last month with mixed results, most recently allowing a run off three hits and five walks to go with five strikeouts for the Worcester Red Sox. As you may have heard, Sale wasn't too happy that five-walk outing, and took his frustration out on a television on the way to the WooSox clubhouse.
He'll look to channel that frustration and take it out on the Rays on Tuesday night in an important battle between two teams vying for an AL Wild Card spot. The Red Sox certainly need all the help they can get in the starting rotation at the moment, with Boston currently down four starters. Nathan Eovaldi and Garrett Whitlock have both been out for over a month, and Michael Wacha and Rich Hill recently joining them on the IL.
The Red Sox have sent out rookies to start six of their last eight games. Boston is 3-5 over that stretch, and are currently just 0.5 games ahead of the Rays for the top Wild Card in the American League.
It would be great if the Red Sox could count on the ace-like Chris Sale to return Tuesday night. The Chris Sale that was 29-12 with a 2.52 ERA and averaged 13.9 strikeouts per nine innings over his first two seasons in Boston. The Red Sox, however, will not be getting that Chris Sale.
He has made just 34 starts over the last three years, missing all of 2020 after undergoing Tommy John surgery. He has returned from injury for Boston before, and he has never regained that ace form.
But Boston manager Alex Cora believes that Sale will come back a lot stronger than he did last year, when he went 5-1 with a 3.16 ERA over nine starts. Sale will throw around 85 pitches on Tuesday, and Cora is confident that he'll be able to go again on Sunday against the Yankees in Boston's final game ahead of the All-Star break. The team is certainly counting on Sale to be a contributing member of the rotation from here on out.
"I believe we can be more aggressive now compared to last year," Cora said after a 10-5 loss on Monday night. "I think we'll be more aggressive. The fact we're thinking about pitching him Sunday tells you a lot."
But as has been the case the last few years, it's best to keep the expectations limited with Sale. We really have no idea what to expect, either. Sale usually starts a bit slow, dominates in the middle of the season, and then falls off come September and October. Will that shift after Sale missed the first months of the season?
Chances are he'll never front a rotation, and we'll likely never see the ace-like stuff he featured during his time with the White Sox and when he first arrived in Boston.
But his return is valuable, because the Red Sox need anything and everything they can get out of their starters right now. The bullpen is being overworked and Boston appears to be limping to the the All-Star break. Even getting just five or six innings consistently out of Sale the rest of the way would do wonders for the Red Sox pitching staff.
We'll get our first glimpse of what the lefty has to offer this season on Tuesday night.
