'He just defies all the laws': Sale (6 scoreless, 9 K's) continues remarkable age-37 season
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NEW YORK -- How good has Chris Sale been through this season’s first four months? Well, his first 20 starts have conjured memories of some of those fantastic seasons Greg Maddux had during the 1990s.
Sale strengthened his Cy Young Award resume with a dominant effort against the Mets in the second game of Wednesday’s doubleheader, a 1-0 Atlanta win, at Citi Field. The Braves ace allowed two hits and notched nine strikeouts over six scoreless innings. He exited with a 2.08 ERA, which is the fifth lowest produced by an Atlanta pitcher through the first 20 starts of a season during the divisional era (since 1969).
“I believe it after playing behind him,” Braves first baseman Matt Olson said.
Olson’s sixth-inning RBI single provided sufficient support for Sale, who has held his opponent scoreless in three of his past four starts. The 37-year-old southpaw’s ERA ranks third in the Majors, trailing only the Brewers’ Jacob Misiorowski (1.58) and the Yankees’ Cam Schlittler (2.04), both of whom are more than a decade younger.
More important to Sale was the fact his latest gem allowed the Braves to split both the doubleheader and a six-game road trip that began by taking two of three in Baltimore. Atlanta headed home with a 6 1/2-game division lead, its largest since June 22.
So what other Braves have produced a sub-2.10 ERA through the first 20 starts of any season going back to 1969? Well, Reynaldo López had a 2.05 ERA at this point in 2024. Then you had Greg Maddux with a 1.57 ERA in 1998, Maddux with a 1.96 ERA in 1995 and Maddux with a 1.75 ERA in 1994. That’s the list Sale has now joined.
“You can make a case that he's as good now as he's ever been in his career, and that's saying something,” Braves manager Walt Weiss said. "It's been an unbelievable career. He just defies all the laws of everything by pitching like this at this point in his career. But he's doing it, and he's doing it virtually every time out.”
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A couple of things worth noting. Maddux won his fourth consecutive National League Cy Young Award in 1995, and he was just 32 during that 1998 season, which ended with him finishing fourth in Cy Young balloting, trailing teammate Tom Glavine, Trevor Hoffman and Kevin Brown.
Maddux, Glavine and Smoltz are three of the greatest pitchers in baseball history. But they weren’t doing what Sale is doing for the Braves at 37. In fact, few pitchers have done what the 2024 NL Cy Young Award winner has done through the first two-thirds of a season at this age.
Sale is one of six pitchers to post a sub-2.10 ERA through the first 20 starts of an age-37 season or older since 1920. The others are:
2022 Justin Verlander (1.73)
2005 Roger Clemens (1.40)
1948 Dutch Leonard (1.95)
1946 Spud Chandler (1.75)
1942 Ted Lyons (2.10)
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“I don't know if I really sit down and think about it a whole lot more than just, you know, trying to string quality starts together as long as I can,” Sale said.
What makes Sale’s late-career success even more impressive is the fact that many assumed his career was nearing an end when injuries limited him to 151 innings from 2020-23. The Red Sox sent him and $17 million to Atlanta in exchange for Vaughn Grissom, who played just 31 games for Boston before being traded to the Angels.
In fairness, even Sale thought 2024 might be his final season. Instead, he won both the Cy Young and Comeback Player of the Year Awards that year. The 2.36 ERA he’s posted since joining Atlanta would rank as MLB’s best, but he is 12 innings (one inning per team game) shy of qualifying.
“It's tough to find any comps for someone like him,” Weiss said. “You’ve got to search long and hard. He’s different, man. I always say the Hall of Famers are different.”