Red Sox ace Chris Sale seeks first win at Fenway Park against his former team
By Sean Penney
The Boston Red Sox are halfway through the regular season and Chris Sale is still looking for his first win at home. Can he earn it against his former team?
We have day baseball on Wednesday as the Boston Red Sox aim to wrap up a sweep of the Chicago White Sox. While we should feel confident with our ace on the mound, wins have been hard to come by for Chris Sale in 2019. If he earns the victory this afternoon it will be his first of the season at Fenway Park.
It’s baffling that we’ve made it halfway through the season without Sale winning a game at home, yet here we are. The lefty is 0-2 with a 3.79 ERA in seven starts at Fenway this year.
The ERA is a bit inflated by early season struggles while Sale was building himself up following an abbreviated spring training. His 2.97 ERA over his last six home starts is far closer to what we expect from him. He’s also struck out 66 batters with only 13 walks over 40 1/3 innings at Fenway, indicating he’s still the dominant pitcher we’ve come to know these last few years.
Yet he doesn’t have a win at home. This isn’t really his fault. You expect to win when you toss seven shutout innings but the bullpen deprived Sale of that victory when they blew the lead against the Texas Rangers. Giving up only a couple of runs over seven innings, as Sale did against the Colorado Rockies and Tampa Bay Rays, is typically good enough for a win.
A shaky bullpen has robbed Sale on several occasions but that concern would be somewhat negated if he received more support from his offense. Sale ranks 37th out of 42 American League starters with a 3.75 average run support this season. This is the same lineup that provides Eduardo Rodriguez with a league-leading 7.44 runs per game. Run support can be fickle but this is clearly a fluke that should eventually rectify itself.
Perhaps that happens this afternoon against a White Sox team that has surrendered six runs in each of their last two games to the Red Sox.
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Sale has three wins on the season, all on the road. Two of them were recorded this month and he hasn’t lost a game in June. His only other win came last month in Chicago against the White Sox. He tossed six shutout innings, allowing only three hits and striking out 10.
The first time Sale faced off against his former team it didn’t go well for the lefty. Chicago shelled him for five runs in May of 2017. It was his worst start to that point in a Red Sox uniform, although he did still earn the win.
His last two meetings with Chicago were dominant. He took a tough-luck loss against the White Sox last June despite allowing only one run in eight innings. Sale would avenge that defeat earlier this season when he finally pitched well and earned a win in the same game against Chicago.
Sale is 2-1 with a 2.84 ERA, 1.21 WHIP, and 13.7 K/9 in his career against the White Sox.
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Wins have been oddly elusive for Sale when he pitches at Fenway this season yet everything seems to be lined up for him to finally capture his first victory at home this afternoon.