SAN FRANCISCO -- If Rafael Devers had any doubts about what former Red Sox teammate Chris Sale might still have left in the tank, they were erased when he was blown away by the 37-year-old hurler’s 99.2 mph fastball on Sunday afternoon at Oracle Park.
Unfortunately for Sale, his strikeout of Devers to end the third inning served as just a portion of his latest encounter with misfortune. He has been saddled by a lack of offensive support over the past month.
But the Braves ace’s effort in this 3-2 loss to the Giants was also marred by a lack of defensive support.
“These are the way things go when you’re not going well,” Braves manager Walt Weiss said. “Their stuff falls and ours doesn’t. That’s just the way it goes right now. But we don’t have a lot of margin for error because we’re not scoring runs. So every run we give up is a big one.”
Sale stands as one of the few bright spots for the Braves (49-33), who have lost 12 of their past 16 games. The 9 1/2-game National League East lead they held over the second-place Phillies on June 7 has been sliced to three games.
"I don't care what the lead is,” Weiss said. “I could care less. We had a big lead early. There were several months to go. I'm not worried about anybody else but ourselves right now."
Everything seemed to come easily for the Braves during this season’s first two months. But over the past few weeks, everything has seemingly unfolded much like Sunday’s sixth inning.
Sale kept the Giants scoreless through five innings, then allowed Luis Arraez to begin the sixth with an infield hit on a half-hearted swing. Two batters later, Devers hit a dribbler that third baseman Austin Riley fielded in the grass before making an errant throw. This allowed one run to score.
The Giants added a run when Ozzie Albies fielded Jung Hoo Lee’s grounder at the edge of the outfield grass and made an errant throw to first base.
“This is Major League Baseball,” Sale said. “I don’t know if anyone has gone tip to tip without losing a couple series or going through a 10-, 15-game rough stretch. So you know these things are coming. You obviously don’t know when they are coming. We just need to do our best job to get out of it.”
Sale’s bid to get his ERA below 2.00 was erased by the defensive miscues. He allowed two runs – one earned – and recorded 10 strikeouts over six innings. His effort may have cemented what would be a third straight All-Star selection and 10th overall.
Sale ranks second in the National League with a 2.10 ERA. He has allowed three earned runs or fewer in 14 of his 15 starts, and he has produced a 1.60 ERA over his past 12.
But Sale’s recent efforts have gone unrewarded. The Braves have scored a total of two runs while he has been the pitcher of record over his past four starts.
The 2024 NL Cy Young Award winner has shown no signs of slowing down. In fact, the heater that retired Devers in the third inning was just Sale’s second-hardest-thrown pitch of this latest start. He threw a 99.3 mph heater to Devers in the sixth with what was his 82nd pitch of the day.
Sale has now thrown eight pitches 99 mph or harder since the start of the 2019 season. Six of those pitches have been thrown this year, including four since the start of June.
“It’s Cy Young [Award-type] stuff,” Weiss said. “He's been on the receiving end of some tough luck here, seven starts in a row. He's doing a great job, and he was really good today.”