Boston Red Sox: A Tale of 8-Starts for Chris Sale

To start the 2019 season, the Boston Red Sox and Chris Sale struggled to find their groove. Things, however, are starting finally starting to look up.

There have been times this season where Boston Red Sox ace Chris Sale looked to be hitting rock bottom. After ineffective starts, he’d say things like, “I just flat-out stink,” shouldering the blame of an atrocious start for not only the team but for himself.

In some ways, Sale did flat-out stink to start the season. In fact, in his first 4-starts, Sale matched his loss total for all of 2018 by going 0-4. In that time span, in 18 IP Sale allowed 23 H, 5 BB, allowing 17 runs, all of them earned while only clocking 14 strikeouts.

Since then, however, Sale has managed to turn things around, showing flashes of the CY Young Award contender that he truly is. In his last 4-starts, Sale is 1-1 with 1.73 ERA. In that time span, he’s allowed 15 H, 6 BB, allowing 7 R, 5 of them ER while striking out 42 batters.

More from Call to the Pen

• Philadelphia Phillies, ready for a stretch run, bomb St. Louis Cardinals
• Philadelphia Phillies: The 4 players on the franchise’s Mount Rushmore
• Boston Red Sox fans should be upset over Mookie Betts’ comment
• Analyzing the Boston Red Sox trade for Dave Henderson and Spike Owen
• 2023 MLB postseason likely to have a strange look without Yankees, Red Sox, Cardinals

Many pointed to his dip in velocity as a reason for Sale’s slow start, which in turn resulted in him using his fastball less. In this assertion, experts and analysts were right. According to Brooks Baseball, Sale turned to his fastball significantly less in his first 4-starts of the season than he has in his last 4-starts.

• Game 1: 25x | 92.9 AVG | 95.1 MAX
• Game 2: 25x | 90 AVG | 92.6 MAX
• Game 3: 26x | 92 AVG | 94.9 MAX
• Game 4: 28x | 95.9 AVG | 97.7 MAX
• Game 5: 28x | 93.1 AVG | 94.8 MAX
• Game 6: 36x | 92.1 AVG | 94.2 MAX
• Game 7: 41x | 95 AVG | 97 MAX
• Game 8: 41x | 93.9 AVG | 96.9 MAX

As a result of using his fastball less in his first 4-starts, Sale became more predictable as his repertoire of 4-pitches, essentially became limited. Hitters could sit on his changeup, which he was relying on more to get batters out. Because of this, in this time span that his strikeouts were down and his WHIP (1.56) was up.

However, something occurred in his 4th start of the season against the New York Yankees that might have sparked some confidence in the ace. For the first time this season, he was touching close to 98 mph on the gun, averaging close to 96 mph on his fastball during that game.

Since then, it seems, that Chris Sale gained some confidence in his fastball, using it more frequently. In turn, hitters were left guessing again, even though, at times, he only averaged 92.1 mph on the gun.

This is good news for the Boston Red Sox, who are 8-2 in their last 10-games. It’s bad news for everyone else.