Happy Sale Day everyone. Wasn’t that a great game? Chris Sale underwent Tommy John surgery on March 30, 2020, to repair the ulnar collateral ligament in his throwing arm. Sale had not pitched in a game for the Red Sox since Aug. 13, 2019, so that is two years and one day since the ace has seen an MLB game. I thought that they would push him back slowly and the Red Sox did. Sale went five innings and only saw the order twice. He took on the “Perez” role since Perez was only going that long per start, so it was business as usual for the starters. He struck out eight batters and walked none on 89 pitches. Sale's fastball averaged a healthy 93.3 mph Saturday. He topped out at 96 mph against the Orioles. The only blunder that Sale had was with two outs in the top of the third inning, he allowed back-to-back home runs to Austin Hays and Trey Mancini before getting a strikeout to end the inning. This was the only runs that he gave up in this start. He also gave up six hits but with someone that just came back from Tommy John surgery, his velocity and control was great!
The Red Sox offense gave Chris Sale plenty of run support in his first start. The offense jumped on the Orioles for 16 runs. All of the starters in this game had at least one hit, except for Christian Vazquez. the Red Sox scored four runs in the bottom of the first inning because of a three-run, 424-foot home run from Rafael Devers. The Red Sox added two more runs in the second and another in the third before exploding for seven runs in the fifth, as Bobby Dalbec hit a two-run homer and J.D. Martinez hit a three-run shot to make it 14-2 as Sale departed the game. When Sale left, Hunter Renfroe also got a home run in the 8th inning. The biggest story in this game for the offense was Bobby Dalbec. He has taken the demotion to the backup first baseman personally. I think this is going to be good for him, the Schwarber and Dalbec platoon, but the 2 for 4 performance is nothing to shy away from. The Red Sox are going to be put in a difficult spot if Dalbec continues to stay red hot because there is no place for him if they want Schwarber to play first. This is exactly why I wanted the Red Sox to not trade for a first baseman. You also stick Schwarber in the outfield either because Duran is finally figuring it out and the DH is always going to be JD Martinez’s.
This is the second year of the five-year, $129.5 million extension the Red Sox gave Sale in March 2019. He is owed $85 million from 2022-24 and Red Sox manager Alex Cora recently admitted the team brought Sale along slowly during his rehab because he is signed long-term, and they didn't want to risk a setback. The Red Sox are 13-15 since the All-Star break and 5-10 since the trade deadline. Their starters had pitched to a 5.20 ERA in the second half and both Martin Perez and Garrett Richards were recently demoted to the bullpen. This is a certainly good sign for things to come for the Red Sox’s rotation and this is hopefully what they needed to pickup their season and to regain the lead in the AL East. They are currently 4.5 games back of the Tampa Bay Rays, but there are a lot of baseball to be played and the last two months will certainly be a race for the Rays, Red Sox, Yankees, and Blue Jays for the AL East crown!