Red Sox ace Chris Sale adapts to pitching with reduced velocity

Boston Red Sox lefty Chris Sale’s velocity is still down yet he proved he can still succeed without it in a promising bounce-back outing in Oakland.

Chris Sale‘s second turn through the rotation undoubtedly went better than his horrific season debut but the Boston Red Sox ace still doesn’t seem like himself.

Vintage Sale is a dominant force with an upper-90’s fastball, filthy slider, and historically great strikeout rate. The lanky lefty who took the mound in Oakland last night was a different pitcher. The quick pace that he’s renowned for was slowed to a more deliberate, methodical approach. Sale was no longer unleashing his best stuff and daring hitters to make contact, he was pitching to contact and letting his defense take care of the rest. It’s a different game plan from what we expect from him yet one he managed to find success with anyway.

Sale was tagged with his second consecutive loss as the Red Sox fell to a woeful 1-5 on the season.  Look past the outcome to the silver lining that is the improved results from their ace, who provided Boston’s first quality start of the season. Sale allowed only one run on three hits over six innings. It wasn’t enough but it was a promising sign.

This hardly suggests that Sale has hit midseason form. He failed to record multiple strikeouts for only the second time in his career as a starter. Sale generated only six swinging strikes, none of which came on a fastball that averaged 89.6 mph, his lowest average velocity in a start since 2012, per FanGraphs.

Unable to blow hitters away with this reduced velocity, Sale was knocked around in his first start in Seattle when he left pitches over the plate. You can get away with mistakes thrown at 98 mph but big league hitters will make you pay when they can sit on a low-90’s fastball.

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Perhaps knowing that the Oakland A’s would be ready to pounce on his diminished fastball, Sale adjusted with a barrage of offspeed pitches and breaking balls. Only 25 of his 87 pitches were four-seam fastballs against the A’s. That’s 28.7 percent from a pitcher who has relied on that pitch nearly 40 percent of the time throughout his career. He used his changeup 30 times and threw 28 sliders. Sale typically uses a healthy mix of those pitches but not quite to this extent.

It’s important to note that Sale hasn’t lost his fastball. The Red Sox have instructed him to intentionally dial it down early in the season in order to preserve his arm for a long season. We’ve seen him sprint out of the gate with a blazing heater early in previous seasons only for him to wear down by September. There is a plan in place to build Sale up slowly so that he remains strong for when it matters most.

We’ll see the real Chris Sale carving up opposing lineups before long. In the meantime, it’s encouraging to see that he’s capable of getting by without his best fastball. His secondary pitches are that good. This should make the Red Sox more confident in their plan to bring their ace along slowly, as the Opening Day shellacking seems more of an outlier.

It’s also a good sign for the long term considering the Red Sox inked Sale to a five-year extension that runs through his age-35 season. Pitchers tend to lose a tick on their velocity as they get older so proving he doesn’t necessarily need to throw 97+ mph to be successful suggests Sale will age gracefully.