It’s probably fair to say that Chris Sale is the best pitcher in Major League Baseball right now.
But where do his actual pitches rank among the best in the game?
The Boston Red Sox left-hander overwhelms hitters with a fastball that regularly sits between 95-99 mph. It’s his wipeout slider, however, that makes Sale truly unhittable at times.
Sports Illustrated’ Tom Verducci, for one, believes Sale’s slider is the best pitch in the game. And in a recently published roundtable about the best pitches in MLB, Verducci explained why the pitch is a cut above the rest.
“Because of its sweeping break and because of the extreme offset of his release point (three feet from the center of the rubber), the slider of Chris Sale is the nastiest pitch in baseball,” Verducci wrote.
” … The pitch is at its nastiest when Sale buries it down and in to right-handed batters. It is virtually unhittable. Sale has thrown 114 sliders down and in to right-handed batters and allowed only one hit — a single by Adrian Beltre July 11. Until then, right-handed hitters had been 0-for-21 this year against Sale’s down-and-in slider.”
Verducci also noted that MLB batters are hitting just .102 against Sale’s slider, which the lefty has thrown 775 times this season while surrendering just 18 hits.
Red Sox fans are eagerly awaiting their next opportunity to watch Sale carve up major leaguers. The American League Cy Young Award front-runner remains on the disabled list with left shoulder inflammation.
