There's a tough but fair reality as the oft-injured lefty finishes 2023
There isn’t a player on the Boston Red Sox roster who doesn’t have something to prove as Major League Baseball’s regular season comes to a close.
The Red Sox have all but fallen out of postseason contention, as they sit five games back of the final American League wild-card spot with just 22 games remaining on the schedule. That has led to a shift in focus, and sure, the guys in the clubhouse are going to keep fighting until the bitter end, but the final month of the season is now a time for Boston to self-evaluate.
There are some who will be affected by that more than others, of course. The likes of Justin Turner, Kenley Jansen and Chris Martin have done more than enough to cement their seasons as a positive for them and the Red Sox, but there are plenty left with something to prove.
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In fact, there’s one of those guys for every team, and in MLB.com’s exercise of finding that player in each market, Ian Browne pointed toward Chris Sale for Boston.
“In May, it seemed Sale had recaptured his groove, going 4-0 with a 2.25 ERA over six starts. But in his first start of June, the lefty suffered a stress reaction in his left shoulder blade,” Browne recalled. “Though Sale rehabbed aggressively from the injury so he could help the Red Sox down the stretch, his performance has been uneven since his return and his velocity isn’t what it was earlier in the season. Sale hopes to build off the five scoreless innings he threw in his last start in Kansas City so he can go into the offseason with some confidence. Sale is under contract for one more season, and he’d be the first to admit the Red Sox have yet to get much return on their investment on that five-year, $145 million contract. He has roughly five starts left this season.”
The decision to pick Sale was sort of an easy one.
There were other candidates, but if you take a deep dive it’s clear that Sale has the most to prove. Trevor Story, Masataka Yoshida and Rafael Devers were options, but they’re going to stick around for awhile.
Sale is essentially in the middle of an audition. Can he prove to be durable enough to earn another crack at being Boston’s ace, or will he ride out the remainder of his Red Sox career as a guy who makes starts when he’s physically capable? The next few weeks could go a long way in helping figure that out.