Chris Sale's Velocity Down, But Lefty Gives Red Sox First Quality Start Of Season
By Matthew Geagan, CBS Boston
BOSTON (CBS) -- The Red Sox finally got a quality start from one of their starting pitchers. But Chris Sale's six innings of one-run ball wasn't enough to get the team back in the win column.
The Red Sox dropped their fourth straight game Tuesday night, a 1-0 defeat in Oakland that dropped them to 1-5 on the season. The last time the defending World Series champs got off to a 1-5 start the following season was the 1998 Florida Marlins, who had held a fire sale that offseason to jump start a franchise rebuild. The Red Sox, however, are not rebuilding.
There was a bright spot in yet another defeat, as Sale showed a vast improvement from his Opening Day disaster in Seattle. After being lit up for seven runs in just three innings last Thursday, the lefty actually gave the Sox a chance to win with six strong innings, holding the Athletics to just one run off three hits. He was bit by the longball again, allowing a solo homer to Matt Chapman in the bottom of the first inning, but it was much better than the three dingers that Sale allowed in Seattle.
The one area of concern with Sale was his velocity -- or lack thereof. While his fastball usually clocks somewhere in the mid-90s, his four-seam fastball averaged just 89.1 mph throughout the game on Tuesday, the lowest velocity in any of his career starts. He topped out at 92 mph, which came in his final inning of work, with only 10 of his 87 pitches flying in at over 90 mph.
That is a bit worrisome, considering Sale's fastball is one of his best weapons on the hill, and considering the Red Sox just gave him a five-year, $145 million contract extension. But neither Sale or the Red Sox sound too perturbed by dip in zip on his fastball.
"Yeah, the name of the game isn't velocity," Sale told reporters after the loss. "It's giving your team a chance to win. No matter what you're featuring that day, you've got to get as deep into the game as you can and leave your team a chance to win when you're out of there."
"You guys want him to pitch the whole year or do you want him to go out and throw 100 (mph) right now and not be there for his team? He's building," Red Sox pitching coach Dana LeVangie told WEEI. "He had a long year last year. He's building up to be the guy he wants to be. He started last year similar, but we're getting to that point, but just not right now."
A positive takeaway from all of that is Sale showed that he can use his secondary stuff to get batters out just as effectively. It wasn't the strikeout bonanza we're used to seeing out of the slender southpaw, as he set down just one batter by way of the K, but it was enough to put his team in a position to win.
Sale threw 87 pitches on Tuesday, and just 25 of them were fastballs. But he effectively deployed his off-speed arsenal, throwing 30 changeups and 28 sliders. Of his 87 pitches, 60 of them went for strikes.
"Just kind of seemed like I had to kind of revert over to my off-speed pitches more," he said. "Just seemed like they were kind of waiting for the fastball. We were kind of heavy on changeup/sliders tonight and that was kind of what we had to do. That was kind of the gameplan going through."
Sale still isn't the dominant ace that fans used to expect every time he toed the rubber, but the fact that he showed he can still be effective without throwing high heat is a positive for the Red Sox. And if a little less zip on his fastball in April means a more effective Sale in August, September and October, no one will be complaining in the end.
