Chicago White Sox ace Chris Sale has a goal for himself and his team this year: to return the Sox to their first postseason since 2008, and to pitch in the playoffs for the first time in his stellar career.
Sale has helped that cause all season and continued to do so on Thursday night with another masterful performance, allowing just one run on four hits for a 2-1 White Sox win over the Houston Astros. The victory stopped a team losing streak of four consecutive games and made Sale the first major league pitcher since 2008 to win his first nine starts of the season (Brandon Webb).
He also is just the fourth pitcher since 1950 to win his first nine starts of the MLB season.
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Before his outing Thursday night, Sale was just one of three pitchers to go 8-0 in eight starts with an ERA under 2.00. His at the time was 1.67. Those other two ended up winning the Cy Young Award that season: Pedro Martinez in 1997 and Fernando Valenzuela in 1981.
After the start on Thursday, Sale now has a record all his own as he’s the first pitcher in MLB history to start the season at 9-0 with a sub-2.00 ERA since the mound was lowered in 1969. He lowered his ERA following the complete game against the Astros (his third of the season) to an outstanding 1.58 mark.
In 1919, Eddie Cicotte was the last White Sox player to be 9-0 in a season where he went 12-0 to start the year.
As for his start against the Astros, Sale allowed just one earned run (an eighth inning home run by Evan Gattis), but he struck out nine and walked none. For the season, Sale now has 62 strikeouts, and in his past three games he’s walked just one batter.
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Watching Sale this season thus far has been an absolute sight to behold. He’s getting outs with fewer pitches, going further in games, and he’s still on an excellent pace in the strikeout department as his average pitch speed has been a tick over 93 MPH on his two-seam fastball.
On Thursday, the Astros had very little answers for Sale, with two of their four hits by Gattis, while top-of-the-order batters Jose Altuve and George Springer were the other two batters to gain a base hit. Also in the win over Houston, Sale faced no more than four batters in any of the nine innings he pitched, and he retired the side in order five times. He ended the game with a strikeout.
If anyone has watched Sale throughout his career, then they would know a season like the one he’s currently having was in the making. He’s been in the top six of the AL Cy Young Award voting four times in the past four seasons, including third place in 2014 and fourth place last season after finishing with a 3.41 ERA in 31 starts, while leading the AL in strikeouts with 274. Since 2013, Sale has had no fewer than 208 strikeouts in a season.
Many will debate who the best pitcher in all of baseball ia right now, Sale or Chicago Cubs ace Jake Arrieta, who is 7-0 with a 1.29 ERA in eight starts this season. Right now, that argument doesn’t have a right or wrong side, as a coin flip is the only way to pick a winner in that debate, but how strange or exciting is it to say the two best pitchers in the game right now play in the same city?
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While Thursday night was about Sale and his brilliance thus far in ’16, his next start should come on May 23 or 24 against the Cleveland Indians, where he’ll look to move to 10-0 in his 10th start of the season.