The Boston Red Sox placed Chris Sale on the 10-day injured list Saturday as the southpaw copes with elbow inflammation.
President of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski told reporters an MRI performed Saturday revealed inflammation in the lefty’s elbow, but didn’t dive into detail about the injury. Dombrowski said the issue wasn’t brought to the club’s attention until Friday night, and believes it occurred during Sale’s start Tuesday against the Cleveland Indians.
“He didn’t say anything to anybody, at least with our club, until yesterday because he didn’t think much of it at that point,” Dombrowski said, as seen on NESN. “But there’s definitely inflammation in there, the MRI showed that. So, we’re of course not taking any chances and putting him on the injured list.”
This is the first time Sale has dealt with this issue since acquiring him in 2016. Dombrowski said Sale had been hoping to make his next start, but the team ultimately decided to err on the side of caution.
So, will Sale pitch again this season?
“I don’t know,” Dombrowski said. “I don’t know one way or another at this point. … Before we have more information, the other doctors will look at the information, look at his MRI’s and then (Sale will) determine if he wants to go see them or not.”
One person Sale will connect with is Dr. James Andrews, but Dombrowski said he’ll only be looking at the MRI at this point. Andrews won’t receive Sale’s information until Monday.
While the team is “very open” to Sale seeing Andrews, Dombrowski isn’t sure if that will happen. At this point, the team’s primary concern is getting all the information possible.
“You always want to have second opinions on this kind of thing,” he said. “So when you get to Chris’ magnitude and you have elbow inflammation, you want people to look at it. So, we’re all on the same page here.”
After all, the more information Sale and the Sox can get about his injury, the better.
“One thing you have to realize, too, with MRIs — how one person reads it is not the same way another person reads it. You can have three different doctors read it, and they can phrase it differently. It’s not like a two-plus-two-type formula all the time.”
While 2019 hasn’t been Sale’s best season, this certainly is a significant blow to the Red Sox’s starting rotation. Boston already has another starting pitcher in David Price on the injured list due to a cyst on his wrist, so it’s unclear how the Sox’s starting rotation will progress moving forward.
