ATLANTA -- Holding Chris Sale for Game 3 of the National League Division Series might have been the right choice even if the veteran hurler hadn’t made the clinching relief appearance in Game 3 of last week’s NL Wild Card Series against the Phillies.
When Sale starts Game 3 of the NLDS against the Dodgers on Tuesday night at Truist Park, he will be exactly one week separated from his most recent start -- Game 1 of the Wild Card round. This aligns with what he did during the regular season, when he made 25 of 27 starts with at least one extra day of rest.
Had Sale started Sunday’s Game 2 win, he would have been five days removed from his previous start, and three days removed from his 21-pitch relief appearance to close out the Phillies. Remove that relief appearance and Sale would have been starting on regular rest for the third time this season and first since April 6.
So, as comforting as it might have sounded to go with Sale instead of using a third straight opener on Sunday, there’s no guarantee Sale would have provided his normal efficiency.
Thanks to the tremendous combined efforts made by Ray Kerr, Robert Suarez, Didier Fuentes and Raisel Iglesias, the Braves’ decision to push Sale back now looks like a genius move. The Braves won Sunday, and will have Sale and Tyler Mahle starting the next two games of this best-of-five series.
“I really felt confident in myself in starting Game 2,” Sale said. “I reiterated that plenty of times to them. But this is a team game. This isn't about me. This isn't about one guy.”
When Sale entered Braves manager Walt Weiss’ office Thursday afternoon and said he was ready to pitch out of the bullpen that night, despite throwing 95 pitches in a Game 1 victory two days prior, Weiss was looking at a thin bullpen.
Weiss has since heard all of the criticism about using Sale to record the game’s final four outs, despite having a four-run lead and nobody out. When Bryce Harper came to the plate with two outs in the ninth, the traditional relievers available were Victor Mederos, Brent Suter and Iglesias, who would have been attempting a four-out save while working a third straight day.
So, Weiss opted to instead have Sale record the game’s final four outs. But Weiss and president of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos weren’t willing to give in to Sale’s wish to pitch again on Sunday.
“If you have Sale in Game 2 and Game 5, as people were screaming about, we saw it as you're getting a diminished Chris Sale twice at that point,” Weiss said. “We wanted to get a full-strength Chris Sale, and that's Game 3. Then possibly impacting the game in Game 5, like we saw in the Phillies series.
"That's what it came down to. We didn't want to have a somewhat diminished Chris Sale twice. … It was regular rest, but he had the outing in between, and it just didn't make sense to us.”
Had Sale pitched on Sunday, it would have been his third appearance and second start in six days. Yes, he could have then started Game 5 on normal rest if necessary. But again, the only starts he made on regular rest this year were his second and third of the regular season.
If Sale is needed out of the bullpen in Game 5, he’ll be ready.
But for now, his focus is on duplicating the success he had on Aug. 27, when he threw a five-hit shutout against the Dodgers at Truist Park. He highlighted that outing by throwing a 100-mph pitch to strike out Shohei Ohtani. It was the first time the 37-year-old had thrown a triple-digit heater since 2018.
Sale’s adrenaline was pumping when he pitched effectively into the seventh inning of last week’s playoff start against the Phillies. Now, he has a chance to face the Dodgers for the first time in the postseason since he came out of the Red Sox bullpen to close out the 2018 World Series, when he struck out each of the three batters he faced in the ninth.
“This is playoff baseball,” Sale said. “That's a helluva team across the way. I'm just preparing for another grind. I'm preparing for another battle and to leave it all on the field. However it shakes out, that's how it shakes out.”