Chris Sale received some good and bad news Monday afternoon.
The good news is that the Boston Red Sox ace didn’t need Tommy John surgery on his left elbow. The bad news, however, is that he will be shut down for four-to-six weeks following a PRP injection from Dr. James Andrews, essentially making a return to the mound this season next to impossible.
Sale was confident in being ready for 2020, and said during his appearance on WEEI’s “Ordway, Merloni and Fauria” Wednesday as part of the WEEI/NESN Jimmy Fund Radio-Telethon that he’s in a great position for someone who was on the receiving end of some not-so-great news.
“I’m obviously relying on a lot of people to get me through this,” he said. “I’ve said it million times, I’m not a trainer, I’m not a doctor … I’m a baseball player, I’m a pitcher. I know the people I have in my corner are going to push me in the right direction. … We’ve got everything at our fingertips in terms of recovery tools, tactics, shoulder programs, things like that. I’m in as good of a spot as you can possibly be in with getting some bad news.”
During a time in the season when the Red Sox are “all hands on deck,” Sale revealed it “sucks” to not be able to help his team during such a crucial stretch.
“No hands on deck for me. It sucks,” he said. “I think if you speak to any athlete that takes pride in what they do, they want to be on the field. Thats number one — manning the shift. … When you sign up to do something, whatever it is you sign up to do … you want to do it to the best of your ability and you want to be there. Showing up is more than half the battle in this game and for parts of the last two seasons I haven’t been able to do that. I can’t change the anatomy of my body. I can’t fix these things. But it’s up to me to work hard through all this and see this process through and do what I can to get back not only as soon as possible, but as healthy as possible and be able to finish this out through and through.”
Sale statistically was having the worst year of his career in 2019 with a 6-11 record and 4.40 ERA. And while it’s a blow to the rotation, knowing he will be 100 percent in 2020 is better than the recovery time of Tommy John surgery.
Check out Sale’s full interview below:
