Chris Sale’s arm is fine, but that won’t allow him to begin the season on time.
The Boston Red Sox ace missed the start of spring training due to pneumonia. Given the fact that he’s coming off an injury-shortened season where he was an objectively underwhelming pitcher, it makes little sense for the Red Sox to rush him to start on time.
So despite Sale’s wishes otherwise, the official start to his 2020 campaign will be delayed.
Red Sox interim manager Ron Roenicke announced Thursday that Sale would begin the season on the injured list. Roenicke reiterated that Sale’s arm is fine, but that the move is out of an abundance of caution since the 30-year-old didn’t begin the season on time.
Sale isn’t happy about his start to the season being pushed back, but he understands and isn’t going to fight it.
“Given what happened last year and going through this offseason, (being ready for opening day) was my goal,” Sale told reporters Thursday morning. I wanted to be there. I’ve let other people do my job and pick up my slack for long enough, so, you know it was a gut punch. When we were in that meeting, I said the only thing this hurts is my ego, and that doesn’t matter. So I didn’t have any — how can you argue with them just trying to take care of me and do what’s best, not only for myself, but for the organization and the team?
“They had great points and I didn’t,” Sale said, via MLB.com. “I respect that. Like I said, I respect everybody in that room and the decision was made and you move forward.
“I know from the outside looking in this is not good. Any time you go on the IL or whatever there’s going to be some blowback, I get it,” Sale later noted. “But I have too much respect and faith in these guys that are in my corner to ever second-guess them with any decision we make about the team, about me personally or anything moving forward.”
Sale did indicate that he’s hoping he’ll be available around the time the minimum stint on the IL comes to a close.
In the meantime, the Red Sox will have to patch together a rotation that now features just Nathan Eovaldi, Eduardo Rodriguez and Martin Perez.
