Just as it seemed the 34-year-old lefty was getting back in a real pitching groove, Sale suffered another setback, writing one more line of disappointment in what has been nothing but disappointment since the end of the 2018 season. He’ll rest the left shoulder that has a newly discovered stress reaction in the scapula (shoulder blade), and won’t be back on the mound until Aug. 2 at the earliest.
And with that, these low-budget, year-to-year Red Sox, who followed up the series-opening win with a 3-1 loss on Saturday night, are reminded once again about one of the worst contract signings in franchise history, the $145 million, five-year extension signed in March of 2019 that has been nothing short of an albatross — boatloads of cash guaranteed to a pitcher who can’t stay on the field. It would have been great to have Sale’s star power shining in this electric Sox-Yankees series, to have him on the mound uncoiling his wiry frame for high-90s fastballs and devastating sliders. Garrett Whitlock did an excellent job stepping up Friday night, outdueling Yankees ace Gerrit Cole on the way to the 3-2 series-opening win, but Sale, like Cole, is a true ace.
When he’s healthy.
As much as the Sox tried to sell the positive in the grim news, who in their right baseball mind could still be optimistic about a player who seems to get injured now just throwing a pitch?
“It’s not perfect but we know it’s not surgical. That’s huge for us, right?” Alex Cora said Friday, when the team announced it had moved Sale to the 60-day injured list. “Now we have to reassess the situation, be patient, wait four to five weeks and see where we’re at.
“We always have concerns but obviously the hope is for him to go through his rehab and be ready to pitch at some point this season. Timetable-wise I can not give you a day or whatever but that’s the hope. We’ve been through this path before. We have to be patient with him, do the same thing again, and hopefully he can perform this season again for us.”
His history says otherwise. Since the contract extension, Sale has undergone Tommy John surgery, surgery on his left pinkie after taking a line drive off it in a game against the Yankees, and surgery on his wrist after injuring it in a bicycle accident. He missed games because of a separate medical issue, been benched by a rib cage stress fracture, and even missed the chance to pitch in Toronto because of his vaccination status. He missed the entirety of the 2020 season and from Aug. 19, 2019, through the end of the 2022, he made only 11 starts.
He got through 11 starts this season, and had only recently hit a stride, going 5-1 with a 2.25 ERA in his last six starts before the injury. Now it all feels like a tease.
Maybe he makes it back in August, and maybe he hits that groove again. Lord knows he’ll try. Sale wants desperately to be out there, talking so sincerely about how devastating it is for him to let his teammates down, to struggle with the disappointment of letting the franchise down. In his defense, all he did was sign a lucrative extension that was offered to him by then-president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski and approved by team owner John Henry (who also owns the Globe).
But hindsight insists the deal can never be separated from the context in which it was signed, done back when Dombrowski was in the throes of a post-World Series sugar high, a high that kicked in with Sale’s clinching out of the championship win over the Dodgers.
Sale was already in decline in the second half of that 2018 season, and there should have been absolutely no panic or rush to extend a deal that already covered him through 2019. But Dombrowski didn’t want the organization to make another Jon Lester mistake, and so he rewarded Sale instead, insisting at the time there were no concerns about Sale’s shoulder.
“He’s healthy,” Henry told reporters in spring training 2019. “He had minor issues. They were able to take their time and give him some rest at one point, but he hasn’t had any significant shoulder issues — significant.”
Yet here we are, with Sale back on the shelf, left to decide now whether to stay in Boston and do his rehab around the team or return to Florida, where he lives with his family, and join Trevor Story at Fenway South. Same old refrain.
“Honestly, I don’t want to say he’s over it but he’s used to it,” Cora said. “He’s been through a lot since 2018. The work that you put in to be able to pitch at this level and in his situation the rehab process and all that, not being able to participate, not being able to be a big leaguer, he said in the past, it takes a toll, it’s hard. But I do believe he’s in a better frame of mind. Being around the family, that helps a lot, and obviously, staying in touch with the guys.
“I think this is the best course, obviously, be smart about it, slow it down, do what we have to do, reassess the situation in a month and hopefully we get good news and he can be back.”
Tara Sullivan is a Globe columnist. She can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @Globe_Tara.