Chris Sale had come so far and overcome so much, and for a fleeting moment it seemed like he truly had put his nightmarish three-year run of injuries behind him.
And yet there he was Friday, sitting at a podium ruminating on yet another injury setback.
Sale is hurt again, this time with a shoulder issue that cut his Thursday start short after only 59 pitches. The injury seemingly came out of nowhere — he said it popped up during the second inning and there’d been no indication anything was wrong leading up to the game — but for a guy who has already endured Tommy John surgery, a stress fracture in his rib, a broken pinky and a broken wrist, it’s put him back in a familiar place.
“Kind of a gut punch. I worked really hard, a lot of people worked really hard to get me to this spot,” Sale said on Friday. “It’s tough being a disappointment again.”
Officially on the 15-day injured list with left shoulder inflammation, Sale’s prognosis is still uncertain. He underwent an MRI and CT scan and hopes to have a clearer picture on the exact nature of his injury later this week.
Maybe the issue could turn out to be minor and Sale could be back after missing two starts. Maybe he could be out a few months or for the rest of the season. Either way, this latest setback is a cruel blow for a pitcher who thought he was finally over the hump.
“It’s disappointing man,” Sale said, taking a long pause to collect his thoughts. “I hate feeling like this. I started having fun playing baseball again, and now I’m back to not having fun.”
Heading into spring training the hope was that Sale could get back to being an ace who could carry the Red Sox pitching staff back into the playoffs, and through the first third of the season he was exactly that. Sale made his first 11 starts, and while the first few were pretty rocky, he eventually rounded into form and was among the top contenders for AL Pitcher of the Month for May.
From April 30 onwards Sale went 4-0 with a 2.25 ERA while striking out 41 batters against just five walks over 36 innings. Opposing batters were hitting .191 against him, and he was also pitching deep into games, at one point going four consecutive starts with 6+ innings and 98+ pitches.
Though the Red Sox were understandably cautious early on, often giving Sale an extra day of rest between starts, he was getting to a point where the club was growing more comfortable letting him off the leash.
“Taking care of him, that’s out the window,” Cora said on Tuesday when asked about the run Sale had been on. “Now we just let him go and hopefully he can go on one of those runs like ’17-’18 and carry this pitching staff all the way through some good things.”
Sale may yet have the opportunity to do so, but for now his season is in a holding pattern and the Red Sox are once again in limbo. The club already faces long odds competing in MLB’s toughest division, and with so much instability in the rotation as it is losing Sale again is a tremendous blow that won’t be easy for the Red Sox to overcome.
One thing Sale is sure about, however, is he isn’t going to let this setback break him.
“If there’s anything I can prove is it’s not going to keep me down,” Sale said. “This is obviously not where I want to be, but if there’s somebody out there watching, never give up. I’m going to keep rolling. I’ve been through the (expletive) and back, and I’m in the (expletive) again, and I’m going to be back.”
Could All-Star Game return to Fenway?
It’s no secret the Red Sox want to bring the All-Star Game back to Fenway Park. Red Sox CEO Sam Kennedy has gone on record multiple times over the past year saying the club is lobbying to host again, and MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred said at the Winter Meetings that Boston is among the cities currently being considered.
This year’s All-Star Game is being held July 11 at T-Mobile Park in Seattle and the 2024 edition will be played at Globe Life Field, the new Texas Rangers ballpark. Three years down the road the 2026 All-Star Game will be held at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, but so far the venue for the 2025 game or for 2027 and beyond haven’t been announced.
Will Fenway Park get the nod? The Red Sox have a strong case, but so do several others.
Since Fenway last hosted the All-Star Game in 1999 there are five clubs who have not hosted or are not currently scheduled to host an All-Star Game. Two of those clubs, the Oakland Athletics and Tampa Bay Rays, are not in consideration due to their respective stadium issues, but the Chicago Cubs, Baltimore Orioles and Toronto Blue Jays have all waited longer and can make compelling cases of their own.
The Atlanta Braves also last hosted in 2000 and were scheduled to host the 2021 game at their new ballpark, but the game was moved in response to Georgia’s controversial new voting laws. It’s unclear how that issue might impact Atlanta’s future All-Star Game odds, but historically MLB has used the Midsummer Classic to showcase its newest venues and brightest stars.
Between the shiny new Truist Park and a roster overflowing with young talent, the Braves have both.
The Red Sox do have a lot going for them, chiefly the transformation of Fenway Park under John Henry’s ownership group. When the All-Star Game last came to Boston in 1999 there were no Green Monster seats, no right field roof deck and no Truly Terrace, and over the past two decades Fenway Sports Group has invested millions into revitalizing the century-old facility to ensure it remains a vibrant destination for generations to come.
Those efforts have also extended to the area surrounding the park, and in the coming years the Red Sox hope to conduct a major redevelopment of the neighborhood similar to what the Cubs did with the Wrigleyville area. That project, dubbed “Fenway Corners,” is currently being reviewed by the Boston Planning and Development Agency and if approved could be well underway by the time a future All-Star Game returns to the city.
Of course, the Wrigleyville transformation is already complete and Wrigley Field has undergone impressive renovations of its own since it last hosted in 1990. Toronto’s Rogers Centre, which last hosted in 1991, is also undergoing massive new upgrades, and Baltimore’s Camden Yards remains one of baseball’s most beautiful parks even 30 years after it first hosted in 1993.
Needless to say the Red Sox have some tough competition, but whether in 2025 or after Fenway Park should be well positioned to host its fourth All-Star Game at some point before the end of the decade.
Bally Sports forfeits Padres broadcast rights
The San Diego Padres have several of the most exciting stars in baseball, among them Juan Soto, Manny Machado, Fernando Tatis Jr. and Xander Bogaerts.
What they no longer have, however, is a local broadcast partner.
Diamond Sports Group, a Sinclair subsidiary which operates a family of regional sports networks under the Bally Sports brand, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy back in March and thrust the 14 MLB clubs whose games it broadcasts into a state of uncertainty. Diamond has continued broadcasting its partner clubs’ games while the bankruptcy proceedings play out, but recently the company missed a rights payment to the Padres, giving it until the end of a two-week grace period to pay or the Padres broadcast rights would revert back to the team.
That deadline passed on Tuesday, forcing MLB and the Padres to begin producing and distributing their games themselves.
“We have been preparing for this groundbreaking moment,” Padres CEO Erik Greupner said in a press release following the announcement. “The Padres are excited to be the first team to partner with Major League Baseball to offer a direct-to-consumer streaming option through MLB.TV without blackouts while preserving our in-market distribution through traditional cable and satellite television providers. Our fans will now have unprecedented access to Padres games through both digital and traditional platforms throughout San Diego and beyond.”
Though MLB and the Padres have enacted contingency plans to ensure games are still widely available — and fans may not notice dramatic changes other than a different channel number given that broadcasters Don Orsillo, Mark Grant and Bob Scanlan are all employed by the team, not Bally Sports — this is still a dramatic and unprecedented development, especially for such a high-profile team in the middle of its season.
So, what happens now?
In the short term the Padres shouldn’t experience catastrophic financial losses. MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said at a hearing Wednesday that the league will backstop the club and any others who find themselves in a similar situation up to 80% of whatever rights fees they were due.
That will only be the case for this year, however, and it’s not clear how MLB is going to make up the difference in rights fees over the long-haul given the same changing market realities that have made regional sports networks less profitable and contributed to Diamond declaring bankruptcy in the first place.
What is clear, this is only the beginning, and while the Padres are the first club to confront the upcoming broadcast upheaval head-on, they likely won’t be the last.
Eovaldi, Wacha named Pitchers of the Month
In news that no doubt raised eyebrows across New England, MLB announced this week that former Red Sox starters Nathan Eovaldi and Michael Wacha have been named AL and NL Pitchers of the Month, respectively.
Eovaldi, now with the Texas Rangers, went 4-0 with a 0.96 ERA and one complete game across five starts in May. Over 37.2 innings he allowed four earned runs while holding opposing batters to a .178 average, and at one point he strung together 29.2 consecutive scoreless innings.
Wacha, meanwhile, went 3-0 with a 0.84 ERA in five starts with the San Diego Padres. He allowed three runs over 32 innings and led the majors in ERA, WHIP (0.72), opposing batting average (.147) and opposing OPS (.405) for the month.
Both pitchers spent last season with Boston and left the Red Sox in free agency over the offseason after signing multi-year deals with their new clubs. The Red Sox instead signed Corey Kluber, who was recently removed from the starting rotation due to poor performance.
Keegan dominating first year of pro ball
Ex-Central Catholic star Dom Keegan is having a monster start to his first full year of pro ball. Entering the weekend he was leading the Carolina League with a .341 average while ranking top three in on-base percentage (.427) and slugging percentage (.522), and he’s also hit four home runs with 25 RBI in 41 games with the Charleston RiverDogs (Tampa Bay, Low-A). The Methuen native, a fourth-round pick out of Vanderbilt last summer, also leads all catchers, both in the majors and minors, with four triples on the year.