Chris Sale's Return Embrightens Us All
A Sale-generated spring in your step and an immaculate inning-sweetened sip of your morning coffee, along with a few other pertinent Red Sox notes as I try, yet again, in vain, to avoid sleep
I started writing something last night about how Red Sox fans need to recalibrate their expectations for this season towards a Wild Card game appearance. I didn’t post it because it felt like piling on after Wednesday night’s unpleasant shenanigans. Fortunately, after Thursday night’s 12-2 series winning win against Minnesota, we can save that particular portion of post-season autopsy until later. For now, we have something far more positive to focus on: Chris Sale!
The Wild Card game is never what you want, no team aims for it, and truth be told the Red Sox should keep their sights on the Rays right up until the math says they can’t be caught. But it does take some sting out of that particular failure that the Red Sox have this guy waiting to take the ball in a one game win-and-in playoff game.
Sale was electric last night. The immaculate inning was beautiful, but he was just as dominating in the first, second, and fourth. OK, not quite as dominant, but still dominant! He made one bad pitch in the fifth to Willians Austudillo, a flat slider over the middle of the plate, and Austudillo crushed it, but I think it was his first bad pitch of the night. The only previous Twins hit had been a swinging bunt down the third base line. It was bad luck that it came immediately before the bad pitch to Austudillo.
Still, every pitcher makes mistakes from time to time, and Sale, as much as we might not think about it, is still recovering from his surgery. To that end though, it was good to see Sale have success against a better lineup than either Baltimore or Texas, his two previous opponents, could offer.
Sale’s slider, changeup, and fastball were all humming against the Twins. The fastball especially was moving, hitting 98 or slightly higher on four of his 35 fastballs. He got swings and misses on each of his three pitch types. In fact, 43 percent of his sliders were either taken for a strike or swung at and missed. Forty-three percent!
He fell apart a bit, or at least ran out of gas, in the sixth inning. He started the inning by giving up hard contact to Rob Refsnyder, a 101 mph line drive out to center. He then walked Brent Rooker with a full count fastball (96.9 mph) and hit Josh Donaldson in the foot with a slider on a 2-2 pitch. The game was 5-2 at that point and Cora, who clearly didn’t want to take any chances, brought in Garrett Whitlock to get out of it, which Whitlock did.
The fact that Cora pulled Sale and didn’t let him work through it indicates there’s still some building back up going on here. Sale isn’t fully the Sale of 2017 yet, and truth be told he may never reach that pinnacle again. But the team is still treating him as if he’s coming back from injury, which he is. Once again though we saw what a healthy Chris Sale can do, and right now the Red Sox need him, maybe more than ever, to do that, to be healthy Chris Sale for the rest of the season, and into the playoffs.
Some other notes as I pretend that 2:30am is a totally normal time for a person to be awake…
Bobby Dalbec had quite a night last night. After two homers and a single, Dalbec’s OPS is up to a very reasonable looking .740 and his slugging percentage is up to a downright respectable .453. If only the dude could take a walk. Before last night, his walk percentage was 5.3 percent, which isn’t good. Still, this is progress, for sure. And, both homers came off of right handers, something Dalbec has struggled with all season long. Progress!
Any way you slice it, Dalbec has hit much better of late. Two homer nights will help that along, but even before then Dalbec has been a stronger hitter. Since the All Star game, he has a .928 OPS and six homers in 28 games. In August, his OPS is 1.184, which is just silly. Part of that comes from being sheltered against right handers, but there’s nothing wrong with that from a purely production standpoint, as long as the team has someone to pick up the slack against those same righties.Now, with Kyle Schwarber healthy, they do. Schwarber played his first inning at first base last night, and looked fine. His bat looked far better than fine, as he doubled and walked four times in five plate appearances. Since coming to Boston, Schwarber has a downright Dalbecian OPS of 1.205. He’s been the best hitter acquired at the deadline so far, and though he’s not this good (nobody is!) he’s the offensive boost this team badly needed. If he can play first against right handed starters, that leaves DH for JD Martinez, which means the Sox can put someone else who can hit in left field, or at least someone who can field the position.
Garrett Whitlock did it again. He came in with two runners on in a 5-2 game, a spot where the game could’ve gotten out of hand, and went: K, ground out. It wasn’t me and my cat, Mr. Fizzles, he was facing either. Dude struck out Miguel Sano and got Luis Arraez to ground out. Oh, and he also pitched a 1-2-3 seventh as well. Because, sure, why not? It would be silly to say Whitlock is the Red Sox most valuable player, but he’s been invaluable of late, and the true wonderfulness of it is that his career is just beginning. I expect him to be a member of the starting rotation next season. For now though, he’s put himself in position to be a vital part of a playoff pitching staff, and to get some AL Rookie of the Year votes as well.
It’s not all wine and roses and rose wine and whiney roses. Matt Barnes came in to pitch the ninth up 12-2 and promptly hit Max Kepler in the foot with a pitch. No worries, though, as Barnes got Austudillo to ground weakly back to him, before sandwiching a walk around two strikeouts to close out the blowout. Whiney roses for all! Matt Barnes was effective!
Barnes threw 16 curves to just 10 fastballs, but he threw the curve in the strike zone. It seems the Twins were watching and expecting him to spike the curves, but Barnes dropped ‘em in, as Twins batters took four for strikes. The Red Sox can win without Matt Barnes, but his success sure makes the team’s success easier, so it was gratifying to see him not miss in the zone with the fastball, as he has been doing during his rough stretch. Good results didn’t hurt either.
We now enter the repetitive portion of the schedule. The Red Sox will go on the road for three in Cleveland and four in Tampa, before returning home for three against Cleveland and three against Tampa. So that’s seven games against Tampa upcoming.
I started this piece saying the Red Sox need to recalibrate away from winning the division, but, and maybe it’s just a foolish-to-note coincidence, I notice the Red Sox happen to be seven games behind Tampa in the standings. Hmmm…
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