'I didn't help myself at all': Sale has short night vs. Angels

ANAHEIM – Five days after manager Walt Weiss described him as being "sick as a dog," Chris Sale took the mound on Monday in Atlanta's 6-2 loss at Angel Stadium looking to build on his 2-0 start to the 2026 season.

While the veteran left-hander’s velocity remained high – touching 97.5 mph in the first inning – the stability he has provided a depleted Atlanta rotation flickered in a rough fourth inning. Sale, currently anchoring a staff missing Spencer Strider (oblique strain), was charged with six earned runs on five hits over four-plus innings before being relieved in the fifth. He finished his night with seven strikeouts and two walks, throwing 51 of his 77 pitches for strikes.

The outing began with him holding onto the "warrior" mentality Weiss highlighted pregame. Despite a leadoff home run by Zach Neto on a 95.3 mph fastball, Sale responded by striking out the side, fanning Jo Adell and Jeimer Candelario to end the first frame. However, the Angels’ lineup made a collective effort to tunnel the zone, laying off pitches down in the zone to force Sale onto the plate.

“He's a strikeout pitcher, and there's a lot of swing and miss on all of his stuff,” Adell said. “And so we were just trying to tunnel the zone and find pitches that we thought we could hit.”

For a rotation that Weiss noted has lost three starters since the beginning of Spring Training, Sale’s health is a necessity. Atlanta entered Monday leading Major League Baseball in ERA, but that depth was tested in the chaotic fourth where Sale's command hit a wall.

After hitting Jorge Soler with a slider to start the inning, Sale allowed a single to Adell. He then walked Jeimer Candelario and Logan O’Hoppe on a combined nine pitches, forcing in a run to give the Angels a 2-1 lead. Sale’s frustration was visible as he paced behind the mound after hitting Yoán Moncada with another slider to force in a second run. By the time Bryce Teodosio grounded an RBI infield single, the Angels had scored three runs in the 28-pitch frame without recording a hard-hit ball – and without Sale recording an out.

"Just bad command," Sale said after the game. "Kind of one of those rare nights where it's going left, it's going right, and just kind of standing out there not really knowing how to fix the problem I was having. I didn't help myself at all."

Despite his recent quarantine, Sale refused to point to the illness as an excuse for the performance.

"There's no leeway," Sale said regarding his high self-expectations. "I expect to do well every time I step foot [on the mound]. I know those are unrealistic expectations, but I can't find a single person in this room that would be okay with going out there and doing what I did tonight."

Weiss acknowledged the rarity of the performance, noting that while the sudden loss of command was "certainly an outlier" for a pitcher of Sale's caliber, he is still human.

"He's like a lot of the great ones and he's harder on himself than anybody," Weiss said of Sale's visible frustration. "I'm sure he's going to beat himself up a little bit because that's just who he is. But I can't wait to see him pitch again the next time out."

The short start put immediate pressure on an Atlanta bullpen that has already been active during this 13-game stretch without an off-day. Joel Payamps, Aaron Bummer, and Osvaldo Bido combined for four innings of one-run relief, while Mauricio Dubón added a late solo home run in the ninth to account for the final margin.

“We’re going to be fine,” Dubón said. “We're going to go through stretches that we're not going to hit ... [We've] just got to stay within ourselves. It’s baseball.”