Chris Sale was vintage Chris Sale on Thursday night against the Los Angeles Angels, and that had Alex Cora quite pleased.
It’s been a trying season for the Boston Red Sox’s ace lefty, but after Cora noted a mechanical fix earlier in the week, the southpaw posted one of his best starts of the campaign, striking out 13 through eight innings while tossing just 99 pitches. Perhaps most impressively, Sale was dotting 97 and 98 mph on the radar gun in the seventh and eighth innings.
Appearing on MLB Network Radio on Friday, Cora said velocity was not what impressed him most from Sale’s outing.
“I do feel like he was able to repeat his windup throughout the outing. People get caught up on the fastball velocity. That’s something, we’re really not worried about it,” Cora said. “I think, when he gets going velocity wise, he can sustain velocity. But his secondary pitches were good. The slider, he was able to steal some strikes with it back door, then he was able to put some guys away, especially righties, with the slider down and in. He was on top of the game.
“It was one of those, yeah there was a lot of work put in between starts. New York Wasn’t great, a lot of people working hard to get this going, and he was outstanding yesterday. Now the challenge is for us to maintain this, keep working the way we did in between starts, then in Cleveland see the same stuff.”
Cora also acknowledged the question that seems to arise with Sale late in the season over the past few years, as the lefty as shown signs of fading as the season wears on in the past.
“That question will always come up. The last few years in August and September, he has not been great he hasn’t pitched to what everyone expects,” Cora said. “And I’m glad that it happened yesterday, but I don’t think that is something that is going to go away. … Physically he is a little bit different than others and we gotta stay on top of it. But we do feel that the program was good, it’s a just a matter that we didn’t execute pitches and we were off for a little bit.
Cora does believe, however, that the phenomenal start from the staff’s ace has the clubhouse vibe up and hopes it can spark a much-needed late-season push from the Sox, who sit on the outside looking in of the American League wild card race.
“We still got time. You saw it yesterday, you see the vibe,” he said. “When aces pitch the way they are capable of, it means a lot to those guys in the clubhouse and also the atmosphere in the ballpark. Hopefully we can use that to get going.”
Boston sits 5 1/2 behind the Oakland A’s and Tampa Bay Rays for the final wild card slot.
