ATLANTA -- Chris Sale experienced 14 Major League seasons before winning his first Cy Young Award. If he extends his current success over the next two months, he may experience the thrill of winning this honor twice in three years.
Left fielder Mauricio Dubón’s apparent misread on a fly ball in the sun on Thursday at Truist Park ended Sale’s scoreless streak at 10 innings. But after enduring a three-run second inning against the Padres, the Braves’ ace regained his dominant form, tallied his 94th career double-digit strikeout game and exited with MLB’s second-best ERA in a 6-5 victory.
Sale allowed three runs, surrendered five hits and recorded 11 strikeouts over six innings. His 2.19 ERA trails only Jacob Misiorowski's 1.57 mark among all MLB pitchers. The only pitchers to produce a sub 2.20 ERA (minimum 20 starts) during their age-37 season or later have been Roger Clemens (1.87, 42 years old in 2005) and Justin Verlander (1.75, 39 years old in 2022).
The 37-year-old Sale retired 13 of the final 14 batters he faced, including the final three via strikeouts. He has accounted for three of the six times a Braves pitcher has completed at least six innings within the team’s past 36 games.
Sale also passed Curt Schilling and now ranks seventh among all pitchers with 94 double-digit strikeout games. He trails only Nolan Ryan (215), Randy Johnson (212), Max Scherzer (114), Clemens (110), Pedro Martinez (108) and Sandy Koufax (97).
Sale’s was backed by solo home runs from Michael Harris II and Ozzie Albies, a go-ahead three-run shot by Dominic Smith in the fourth and Drake Baldwin’s decisive homer in the seventh.
But the line would have looked better and the veteran pitcher’s ERA might have dropped below 2.00 had Freddy Fermin’s lazy fly ball been caught in the second inning.
Dubón was late in locating the high fly ball, initially retreating before racing forward as it fell in front of him in left field. Had the ball been caught, the following popup from Jase Bowen would have been the inning’s final out.
Instead, before getting that potential third out, Sale hit Jake Cronenworth with an 0-1 pitch, walked Fernando Tatis Jr. with the bases loaded after getting ahead 0-1 and surrendered a two-run single to Luis Rengifo on an 0-2 pitch below the knees.