Red Sox Notes: Chris Sale Leads Durable Start For Boston

The Boston Red Sox finished off a bounce-back weekend with a 7-3 victory over the Kansas City Royals at Kauffman Stadium on Sunday afternoon.

The offense gave starter Chris Sale a lead in the fourth inning after the left-hander got off to a clean start. Boston starters had previously pitched five innings just five times in the previous 12 games. As a result, starters had been ineffective and the bullpen became incredibly overworked.

Sunday’s performance from Sale was a much needed one. With a good feel for his slider, the lefty worked through five scoreless innings, allowing just two hits with two walks and five strikeouts.

“I feel comfortable where he’s at physically,” Cora shared, as seen on NESN’s postgame coverage. “I know the velocity was down the whole day and he grinded. I think the slider was good. He was able to land it and then expand. The changeup was OK. Whenever he needed velo, he got it.”

Sale finished five innings and threw 100 pitches for the first time since May. His quality innings ended the series on a high note for the Red Sox as the team heads to Tampa Bay.

“I was in between,” Cora admitted of his mound visit in the fifth inning. “When I know, I take him out before. I don’t play that game of going out there and changing my mind. He convinced me. I was actually going to take him out. He was like, ‘Give me one more.’ I was very straightforward: throw strikes. You saw 94, 95 then the slider. He got out of the inning. We needed that. We can’t keep going 4 2/3 (innings). It was a big one.”

“Getting through that was going to be big for me,” Sale said, as seen on NESN’s postgame coverage. “He gave me some words of encouragement, to say the least.”

With a deeper outing to get through five, Sale has confidence to keep pitching well.

“Moving the chains, as we call it,” Sale said. “You want to get deeper into games. Hopefully next time it’s 100 pitches over seven or eight innings. Getting the pitch count up is important. Moving forward, hopefully, we can start eating more innings.”

Here are more notes from Sunday’s Red Sox-Royals game:

— The Red Sox moved to 5 1/2 games behind the Texas Rangers in the American League wild-card race.

— Alex Cora earned his 433rd career win as the Boston manager, taking sole possession of the fifth-most managerial wins in franchise history, according to Red Sox senior manager of media relations and baseball information J.P. Long.

— Triston Casas extended his hitting streak to 10 games with a double in the fourth inning.

— The Red Sox won their first series since sweeping the New York Yankees from Aug. 18 to Aug. 20.

— Alex Verdugo left the game in the sixth inning with left hamstring tightness, as reported by Tom Caron on NESN’s broadcast.

— The Red Sox continue their road trip to Florida for a three-game series against the Tampa Bay Rays beginning on Monday. First pitch is scheduled for 4:10 p.m. ET, and you can watch the game, plus an hour of pregame coverage, on NESN.