Sale's Pitch: The Stunning Comeback of Chris Sale
After a series of freak injuries, Chris Sale is the best pitcher in baseball. Again.
Over the past two weeks, while we’ve had our heads down in all things Olympics, another extraordinary story has been playing out back home. Unlike those that happen at the Olympics, this isn’t the type of story that pops up, all of a sudden, a moment of glory. This is one of sustained excellence, of grinding, of refusing to quit after all the evidence says, “You know what? Maybe you actually should.”
Do you remember the pitcher Chris Sale? Years ago, he was one of the best in baseball. He’s made 8 All-Star games. Won a World Series. Became the fastest pitcher to ever reach 2,000 career strikeouts. Signed a $145 million deal with the Red Sox.
And then, things fell apart. It wasn’t Sale’s fault. Bad things just kept happening, over and over and over again. He tore a ligament in his elbow first. Two years later, while coming back, he was pitching a practice bullpen session when he somehow suffered a stress fracture in his rib cage—a total freak injury that many trainers couldn’t explain. He fought back, and in his second start after returning, a ball smashed into his hand and shattered his pinkie. One day, he was biking to pick up his lunch when he fell and broke his wrist. The next season, he was pitching when he suffered a stress reaction in his shoulder blade.
“We need to dispatch some people to find whoever has the Chris Sale voodoo doll and recover it,” Chaim Bloom, the Red Sox’ Chief Baseball Officer, told reporters.
The Sox got tired of waiting, shipping Sale to Atlanta for cash and a little-known minor league journeyman. He hadn’t completed a full season in nearly five years.
“It’s a weird thing to look at a train wreck and try to think of something positive,” Sale said recently. “But that’s honestly what my last few years have been. This has been a disaster.”
Sale considered retiring. Of course he did. But, he says, “I always wanted to kind of see it through.”
What that meant—seeing it through—is up for interpretation. Maybe he meant he just wanted to get healthy again. Maybe he wanted to pitch one final season. Maybe even a stint in the bullpen, contributing to a team again, would have satisfied him.
It’s hard to imagine that he—or anybody—thought it would go like this.
Before the season, Sale downplayed any expectations of a comeback. “I have to get strong again,” he told MLB.com. He changed his jersey number to 51 after Randy Johnson, his favorite player, the flamethrower who pitched until he was 45.
Then he started to dominate.
For the Braves, Sale has started 22 games this season. He’s not just healthy; he leads the Braves in innings pitched. He’s won 13 games, second most in the league, and his 2.61 ERA is also second in the league. Sale is striking out 11.8 batters per 9 innings, the highest mark in baseball. In his most recent outing, Sale went 7 innings against the Giants, whiffing 12. He’s the clear frontrunner for the NL Cy Young Award.
“The world didn’t stop turning because my arm hurt, you know,” Sale said recently. “But it was tough.”
No, the world didn’t stop turning. He’s missing a key fact, though. Chris Sale also never quit. In the face of freak injury after freak injury, he kept climbing back on the mound, peering at the catcher, rearing back, and letting it rip.
🐐 We’re almost to the end of In the Arena: Serena Williams! This week, we rewind as Serena returns to Indian Wells—and examines the reason why she boycotted the tournament in the first place. It’s a haunting and ultimately moving message of trauma and forgiveness. She’s a stronger person than I am. Make some time to watch this one.
🥇 For my money, the most moving moment of the Olympics was Novak Djokovic’s emotions when he finally won a gold medal for Serbia. Here are the scenes when he returned home.
🎸 Another great baseball story. St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Adam Wainwright received a letter in the mail with a Cubs logo on it…I’ll let him take it from there.
🐘 I’ll let the sub-hed for this great story in The Ringer do the talking: “After the A’s announced they were leaving Oakland, a pair of lifelong fans set out to do something audacious: start a beloved pro baseball team of their own. Remarkably, they pulled it off. Now the Oakland Ballers need to survive.”