Chris Sale tosses five innings to secure series win over the Royals
Red Sox left-hander Chris Sale emptied the tank tossing five innings to help lead his team to a 7-3 over the Royals on Sunday.
Sale threw five scoreless frames, allowing two hits and two walks while striking out five.
The Red Sox needed Sale to give them five innings. Sale and Tanner Houck went five-plus in back-to-back games, after Sox’ starters struggling over their previous six starts prior to Saturday.
“We needed that. We can’t keep going 4 2/3 [innings],” Alex Cora said. “It was a big one. I feel comfortable with where [Sale] is at physically. I know velocity was down the whole day and he grinded. It seems like the last game in Kansas City the last few years is a tough one, weather-wise, energy-wise, so I’m glad we got the ‘W’ and [Sale] was good for us.”
Sale was loosing steam as his outing went on, leading Cora to come to the mound giving Sale an ultimatum.
“He begged for one [more batter],” Cora said. “As soon as he put his glove over his mouth he was like, ‘Just give me this one.’ He’s done it before. Sometimes we agree and sometimes we don’t. He knows, we talk about it before the outing.
“I was in between, seeing where we were at, and he convinced me.”
Sale rewarded his manager’s trust by retiring Royals’ hitter Maikel Garcia to ground out and end the fifth inning.
“You want to get deeper into games, so hopefully next time it’s 100 pitches over seven or eight innings,” Sale said. “ … I felt like there was a lot of 2-2, 3-2 counts. A lot of foul balls ... but nice to come out on top. [Masataka Yoshida] came out and set the tone with a three-run homer.”
Yoshida connected for his 14th blast in the fourh inning. It was the Japanese superstar’s first homer since Aug. 18th.
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If you can’t or won’t pitch into the 7th inning every time then how dare you call yourself a MLB starting pitcher. SABR metrics and the imbeciles who promote it and hire them are a disgrace to professional baseball. There are about 150 starting pitchers in the MLB today of them there’s Verlander , Scherzer , Cole and maybe 3 others who are real starters the rest are just filling a slot.
The Dodgers cut loose an above average starter because baseball said he had unorthodox sex with women yet the DA didn’t file charges due to lack of evidence. The Dodgers now have a pitcher who in the past 3 years has been arrested twice for Domestic Violence why is he still in MLB and getting paid millions? Let’s see 1 is white and Right Handed and very outspoken while the other is Latin Left Handed and his only crime is he likes to beat up his wife. MLB wonders why the game is struggling.