Of All The Ugly Chris Sale Stats, This One Easily Is Most Concerning

You know things are going bad when inducing a swing-and-miss is noteworthy.

As you probably have noticed, Chris Sale hasn’t exactly looked like himself this season. The Boston Red Sox ace was horrible against the Seattle Mariners on Opening Day, and although he only gave up one run in his second start, his fastball sat in the high-80s for much of his outing against the Oakland Athletics. The noticeable drop in velocity has led many — including opposing scouts — to assert that the shoulder issue that limited Sale in the second half of last season still is bothering the left-hander.

In addition to lacking velocity, Sale’s fastball has been downright ineffective. In fact, the 30-year-old failed to induce a swing-and-miss on a fastball in both of his first two starts.

That brings us to Tuesday, when Sale allowed five runs on seven hits in four innings against the Toronto Blue Jays at Fenway Park. At one point during the outing, Sale finally got a swing-and-miss on his heater.

Check out this tweet from MLB.com’s David Adler:

That’s right: It took 83 (!) fastballs for Sale to finally induce a swing-and-miss. If that’s not concerning, we don’t know what is.

That said, Sale’s fastball did reach as high as 95 mph during Boston’s home opener, so perhaps he truly is building himself up. Given his history of fading toward the end of seasons, it might not be a bad idea to force Sale to hold himself back in the spring months.

(For what it’s worth, the Red Sox seemed to attribute the velocity dip in Oakland to a stomach bug.)

Velocity aside, there’s no denying that Sale looks like a different pitcher than Red Sox fans are accustomed to. His slider doesn’t have the same bite, his command of offspeed pitches has been miserable and opposing batters look something they rarely do against Sale: comfortable.

Is it still too early to hit the panic button? Probably, but we’re getting close.