Chris Sale hasn’t pitched in a Major League Baseball game since 2019, but that isn’t stopping him from setting expectations for himself high.
This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone considering Sale’s work ethic is fierce, to say the least.
The Boston Red Sox pitcher threw a 25-pitch bullpen at Fenway Park on Tuesday afternoon, a positive step in his recovery from Tommy John surgery he underwent in March 2020. And even though his progress hasn’t been the smoothest — between COVID-19, a neck and back issue — Sale still has a positive outlook despite having bad days.
But even with the bad days, Sale still expects him simply be himself once he returns.
“I expect to be myself, be the guy I’ve always been,” Sale said Tuesday over Zoom. “I just started throwing breaking balls and the first couple weren’t pretty. And my expectation level is still as high, if not higher than it has ever been. I was down in Florida. I was with (Ryan) Brasier. And I threw the first breaking ball and he’s like, ‘You look like you’re confused or something. What did you expect that to look like?’ I was like, ‘I expected that to be nasty. I didn’t expect for the catcher to have to jump to catch it.’ So I fully expect to be who I am and do what I do at the highest level.”
We wouldn’t expect anything less.
