Why Ex-Red Sox Ace Made Fiery 2018 World Series Speech

The 2018 Boston Red Sox didn’t exactly face much adversity.

The team rolled to 108 wins in the regular seasons and defeated the New York Yankees and Houston Astros, a pair of team that also won 100 games, to win the American League pennant.

Boston won the first two games at home against the Los Angeles Dodgers in the World Series before an 18-inning affair went to the National League champions in Game 3. The Dodgers continued momentum with a 4-0 lead in Game 4 and threatened to even up the series at two games apiece.

The Red Sox needed a spark and ace Chris Sale accepted the urging to speak up in the visitor’s dugout.

“Brian Johnson came up to me and said, ‘Dude, I feel like somebody should say something, we’re flat right now,'” Sale shared on Bleacher Report’s “On Base With Mookie Betts” podcast with his former teammate. “I forget exactly what moment it happened. The two wires in my head touched. The spark went and I just lose it.”

“It was basically just along the lines of, ‘Let’s pick it up, let’s be who we are,'” Sale recalled. “There may have been some more character words behind it. It was basically like, ‘Hey, this is not who we are. We’re playing flat. This is not what we’ve done the whole year, the whole playoffs or even these first few World Series games. Pick it up. Let’s be the team we are.'”

The offense responded well and rallied late to take a 3-1 series lead after the Game 4 victory with a 9-6 final. The next night, the Red Sox closed out the series in five games and Sale struck out the side to end it in relief.

The dominant club ended the season in style and Betts pays at least some credit to Sale’s fiery speech.

“If he’s yelling, something is really going on,” Betts said. “You never did that. You were always chill. I think it did get us going.”