It’s time to appreciate Michael Wacha
SAN DIEGO – “Don’t switch sides now. If you were talking (expletive) and hating me a couple months ago, stay on it. Be consistent.”
Chris Sale only uttered the words once, never really coming close to verbalizing such thoughts other than that one appearance on the ‘Baseball Isn’t Boring’ podcast back in early March.
He knew how it might work. As good as it felt, and continues to feel, the conversation can flip on a dime. It ultimately happened coming out of spring training – thanks in large part to the Orioles – and all it would take is one bad start to resurface all those not-so-subtle murmurs.
But if there was a time Sale might be tempted to throw down a similar gauntlet as the one voiced on the podcast, it feels like this is it.
After his seven-inning, two-run, 111-pitch win over the Padres Saturday night at Petco Park, Sale is on a run that has seen him total a 2.30 ERA, striking out 32 and walking just three. The stretch has also seen opponents carry just a .163 batting average and .528 OPS.
Yet, Sale stayed on message.
He is getting there.
“I feel like I’m trending in a good direction,” Sale said. “Been around here too long to feel like I’m on top of a mountain at all and I’ve still got a lot of work to do. I know where I’m at. I know what I’m doing. But it takes a lot of work, not only for myself, but everyone around me. I know I’m the one out there pitching but I know without these guys, without my staff, without the trainers, my teammates, even in this game, picking me up and getting me refocused, I’m not having any success, I obviously really appreciate who I have in my corner, the guys that I’m going to battle with. I’m just going to do that.”
He added, “I just feel more normal. That was kind of the gist of that a few weeks ago was get back to doing things that made you successful things, things that make you feel a bit more comfortable out there. Obviously, I don’t have these beautiful clean mechanics but when I do the things I need to do, when I hit the spots I need to hit, the end results would be much better. We’ve got a team of video guys, unbelievable coaching staff that’s got me back on track and obviously pointed those things out to me. So again, keep grinding, keep going and see how it shakes out.”
There has been no puncutation for Sale’s existence, just important reminders. This time around it was Red Sox manager Alex Cora leaving Sale out through the sixth and seventh innings.
The highlight in Cora’s show of faith came with Ha-Seong Kim standing at second base, the Red Sox leading by just two runs, and nobody out with the meat of the Padres’ batting order coming up.
After a sharp line-out to right field by Xander Bogaerts, Sale struck out both Juan Soto and Nelson Cruz to escape the night’s biggest bump in the road. And just for some added panache, Sale whiffed Cruz on three pitches, all sliders.
“I think he’s in a good spot,” Cora said. “Early on, there was a game. I think it was the Twins that he went six, I want to say, and a lefty was coming up in the seventh. But I didn’t feel comfortable sending him out there. Now you feel good about it, understanding that there’s going to be an off day and his next target is Friday. So just… we always talk about that F-you attitude. Those three sliders to Nelson. I was like, you know what? This is the game, go out there. We had Kutter (Crawford) ready just in case, but we were talking about the pinch hitters and bringing in the lefties and probably put us in a bad spot coming into later on in the game. So let him go out and he did a good job.”
Both the Red Sox and Sale continue to piece things together heading into June. But thanks in large part to Saturday night, both parties are defining themselves in fine fashion.
An honest conversation with Chris Sale