This wasn’t the way Chris Sale pictured his return to Chicago. He also complained during spring training about new limits on Adam LaRoche’s son hanging around the clubhouse, a management decision that prompted LaRoche to retire.
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Sonny Gray (2-2) allowed seven runs in 4 2/3 innings for Oakland, which dropped a season-high seven games below.500. It wasn’t just that Sale flopped, but it was how. Sale allowed a single to Kevan Sanchez and issued a rare walk to Yolmer Sanchez before allowing three straight singles to cut the Red Sox’ lead to 4-3. Strickland targeted Harper three years after Harper hit two home runs off him in the playoffs, and it’s notable that San Francisco catcher Buster Posey did nothing to stop Harper when he took after Strickland, essentially telling his pitcher “If you can’t let it go that he hit two homers off you three years ago, don’t expect me to stop him from taking a swing at you when you hit him with a 98-mile per hour fastball”. He struck out 10 with no walks on 115 pitches. Chris Sale even made some atrocious White Sox teams watchable, albeit once a week. White Sox right-hander Juan Minaya (1-0) pitched a scoreless inning of relief with three strikeouts to earn the victory. Both alterations were presented as part of a conscious strategy between Sale and Don Cooper. “It’s hard to stay in one place for your whole career”. His average fastball velocity is back up to 94.4 miles per hour after dipping to 92.8 last season, according to Fangraphs.
“He attacked them and had the double-play ball going, which was huge”, Seattle manager Scott Servais said. He wanted to establish a new personal standard of endurance in 2016, and perhaps meeting those goals gave him the confidence to find the higher gears. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, Sale has joined Pedro Martinez, Curt Schilling and Roger Clemens as the only pitchers to rack up at least 100 strikeouts in their first 10 starts of a season.
Porcello is finding easy outs a lot tougher to get after going 22-4 with a 3.15 ERA last season. He’s the front-runner for the Cy Young.
“I’m going to go to him and ask him”. He’s always been impervious to outside criticism. He traded for damaged goods more than once and as many as three times, but Sale still more than balances the scales, even accounting for the losses of Yoan Moncada and Michael Kopeck. With the way the Red Sox swung the bats, it didn’t make much of a difference. Nor could the front office give him a manager that deserved the job in any of his full seasons.
What was pegged as a pitcher’s duel between Sale and Jose Quintana was far from it.
That kind of dominance wore a White Sox uniform for almost 150 starts of Hall of Fame-caliber (yes, Hall of Fame-caliber) starting pitching performance.
For the rebuilding White Sox, in the final year of his contract, Cabrera is a prime candidate to be traded and he’s in the midst of a nice hot streak. He is signed through this season and has team options worth $12.5 million and $13.5 million for 2018 and 2019, respectively.
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“I don’t know if we gave away the cut-up ones, but maybe we can wear them and put, like, some tape around some of the shirts, so it looks like Edward Scissorhands out there”, Frazier said. We have to take closure wherever we can get it.
