On a wet and dreary Sunday afternoon at Fenway Park, Red Sox pitcher Chris Sale put together arguably his most successful start of the campaign in a 7-1 win against the Cleveland Guardians. The only reason it's even debatable is because Sale struck out 11 batters in a six-inning outing less than two weeks ago.
However, given the way Sale pounded the strike zone in his longest start since 2019, and the fact he benefited from a few noticeable tweaks, Sale seemed as optimistic Sunday as he's been in recent memory. Sale, with his fastball reaching as high as 98 mph, threw 72% of his pitches for strikes. He received an ovation in the seventh inning as his 6 1/3 frames marked his longest start since August 2019.
Sale shared the improvements he made, and expressed how it propelled him to a momentum-building performance.
"Not just the last week but this has been a work in progress since spring training," Sale told reporters after the game, as seen on NESN's postgame coverage. "So, you know, switched up my delivery a little bit, just tried to get a little bit more loose, tried to get a little bit more whip back in my arm. Just felt a little stiff the last few times. So, it was something AC (Alex Cora) brought up -- being a little bit more athletic, get a little more fluidity in my delivery. So it worked today so keep it rolling."
Sale, who watched videos on his delivery from 2018, 2021 and 2022 over the past week, admitted he was encouraged more by Sunday's outing than he was the mid-April start when he struck out 11 against the Minnesota Twins.
"Yeah, I just think this one has more of what I used to do. Especially with my delivery," Sale said. "AC was the first one to bring it up, I talked to (Dave Bush) about it, Devin in our video room was showing me a lot of stuff yesterday that clearly helped. Again, it's just being a little bit more athletic, a little bit more loose. Not being quite as stiff, upright, things like that. So, again, today was a good day but it takes a whole squad to get there so I had a lot of help this past week and obviously throughout."
Cora was understandably pleased with what he saw from Sale, as well.
"He did a good job. I think he was moving better on the mound, velocity was there," Cora told reporters, as seen on NESN. "Under control, made some pitches. Just little by little, to get to that point, and that's a tough team because they put the ball in play and they battle pitches. Great pace, too.
"Overall a good one. All the hard work they put together between starts, now we got to keep doing it," Cora continued. "There's gonna be good ones, there's gonna be tough ones, but as long as he's healthy we're going to get him at one point. That was good to see."
Here are more notes from Red Sox-Guardians:
-- Red Sox catcher Connor Wong absolutely crushed a four-seam fastball from Guardians reliever N Sandlin in the bottom of the sixth inning, giving Boston some much-appreciated insurance immediately after Cleveland cut its deficit to 2-1. It marked the first of the season for Wong, who told NESN's Jahmai Webster how he was looking to get a pitch inside. The 427-foot blast would have been a home run at every ballpark in the league.
"It's nice. I mean, it gives you confidence that you don't have to try to do too much at the plate and you can keep it simple and good things will happen," Wong told Webster after the game.
Cora added of Wong: "He's been good, hitting the ball hard. He hits the ball hard. And just making adjustments, he's not getting under it, he's actually getting on top of the baseball and simplifying his approach, which is good."
-- Cora had a lot to be pleased about with Alex Verdugo after Sunday's game in which the leadoff man recorded another three RBIs less than 24 hours after a walk-off knock. And while Verdugo's two-run single in the fifth and solo home run in the seventh were great signs, Cora was left praising Verdugo for his final plate appearance which went for an eighth-inning walk.
"Really good, especially the last one," Cora said of Verdugo's production at the plate. "Take your walk. don't get greedy because you hit a homer. ... Easily he could have gone out and tried to hit another home run and he's not doing that this year."
-- Red Sox reliever Kenley Jansen tweaked his back during Boston's walk-off win Saturday. Cora said while Jansen is feeling better, the Red Sox plan to stay away from him Monday like they did Sunday.
"He's feeling better, but we'll try to stay away from him one more day."
-- The Red Sox now have won four of their last five series.
-- The Red Sox will continue their home stand with a series against the Toronto Blue Jays starting Monday. First pitch from Fenway Park is set for 7:10 p.m. ET, and you can watch it live on NESN after an hour of pregame coverage.
