The reports of Chris Sale’s demise as an ace appear to have been greatly exaggerated.
Though he received little run support from the Red Sox offense, the big lefty delivered his best outing since before undergoing Tommy John surgery. Sale struck out 11 Minnesota Twins batters, including six in the first two innings alone, and allowed only one run over six strong innings of work.
The Red Sox went on to win 5-4 in the 10th inning, with Alex Verdugo capping off a wild sequence with a walk-off single off the wall below Pesky’s Pole, which barely stayed fair and left the players and crowd hanging before the call was upheld on review.
Even though he didn’t wind up factoring into the decision, Sale’s performance was an encouraging development for the Red Sox.
“There are no words,” Red Sox manager Alex Cora said of Sale’s performance. “It was great, that’s a good lineup and he was under control, fastball played tonight and after that he just took over.”
Coming off a rocky first three starts, Sale’s stuff on Tuesday was electric and his command significantly improved. His velocity sat 94-95 mph deep into the game and he drew 19 whiffs on 44 total swings.
It wasn’t a perfect outing. Sale allowed three hits, walked two and hit two batters, and in the fifth he also found himself in a bases-loaded, no-out jam. But he fought his way out of trouble, striking out Donovan Solano, holding Carlos Correa to a sacrifice fly for his only run of the outing, and getting a grounder to shortstop by Byron Buxton to end the inning.
“This is who I expect to be and this is who I need to be,” Sale said afterwards. “I can’t be who I was, I’ve got to be who I was tonight and I’ve got to continue to build on that.”
Josh Winckowski came on in relief of Sale and allowed a go-ahead solo home run to Max Kepler on his second pitch, but after that the second-year righty was solid and kept it a 2-1 game heading into the bottom of the eighth.
The Red Sox, who had already stranded nine baserunners by this point, finally broke through after a bizarre catcher’s interference play set up runners at the corners with one out. Kiké Hernández scored the tying run after beating the throw home on a Jarren Duran grounder to second, and Kenley Jansen mowed down the Twins with a scoreless top of the ninth to bring up the heart of the order.
Rafael Devers, Justin Turner and Masataka Yoshida could not get anything done against electric Twins closer Jhoan Duran, whose fastball hit 102 mph and whose splitter averaged close to 99, but after the Twins took a 4-2 lead in the top of the 10th the offense rallied one more time for their second walk-off of the season.
But not before things got really weird.
Kutter Crawford, who pitched 6.1 innings on Monday, entered the game as the ghost-runner to start the inning since Justin Turner had already been moved to second base, costing Boston their DH spot. He’d come around to score on Reese McGuire’s game-tying two-run single, and then Jarren Duran singled to re-load the bases with no outs.
Then, Rob Refsnyder grounded into a highly unusual double play where the ball rolled right to the third baseman, who tagged out the charging Triston Casas down the third base line and threw Refsynder out at first. Then, Verdugo drove a line drive into the right field corner, which hit low off the wall and left everyone guessing until the umpires ruled it fair, prompting an awkward celebration while the play was reviewed.
“It fooled me like three times,” Verdugo said. “I ran, stopped, ran, stopped, ran, stopped, and I was like that ball looks really foul, and as it went down it kept slicing and slicing. Just lucky.”
The last time Sale struck out 11 or more batters was on Aug. 13, 2019, his last start before being shut down due to elbow trouble. That day he struck out 12, and since his return Sale’s game-high for strikeouts was eight, which he reached three times in 2021.
Overall Sale has struck out 11 or more in a game 51 times, and if Tuesday’s reemergence of vintage Sale winds up being a preview of things to come, the Red Sox patience in their ace may finally be rewarded.