ATLANTA — Tom Glavine, the former Atlanta Braves single-season strikeout leader among left-handers, was asked Saturday about Chris Sale, who this month passed Glavine and became the first left-hander in franchise history with 200 strikeouts in a season.
What’s most impressed Glavine about Sale this season is his health. Because all the rest of it is, well, that’s just how good Sale is when he’s healthy, Glavine said. And Sale has stayed injury-free in his first season with Atlanta after the Red Sox salary-dumped him on the Braves in a Dec. 30 trade.
“I think there was no question what he’s capable of doing when he’s healthy,” Glavine said a few hours before Sale’s latest exceptional performance helped the Braves rout the Los Angeles Dodgers 10-1 to improve to a season-high 14 games over .500 (81-67) for the first time and pull even with the New York Mets for third place in the NL wild-card standings.
The Braves franchise claims Hall of Famers Glavine and Warren Spahn, among other lefty greats. And now Sale, at 35, has rejuvenated his career after five injury-plagued years in Boston.
Sale held the Dodgers to five hits and one run in six innings, improving to 17-3 while trimming his ERA to 2.35 and raising his strikeout total to 219 in 172 2/3 innings. His record, ERA and strikeouts are all major-league leaders, and, presumably, make him a mortal lock to win his first Cy Young Award.
“You know it’s gonna be a tough battle” facing Sale, said Dodgers star Mookie Betts, who went 1-for-3 with a single and a double-play grounder Saturday against his Red Sox teammate for three seasons. “I just saw him being Chris Sale (again), making it tough. Just continuously getting out of innings and making pitches.”
Tom Glavine said Chris Sale ‘has always been one of the better pitchers in the game.’ (Jason Wise / Associated Press)
Asked how close Sale is to his vintage form, Betts said, “It’s the same. It’s kind of what you expect out of Chris Sale, especially when he’s healthy. I don’t think this is something new to anybody, and if it is you probably didn’t know who Chris Sale was.”
Sale had six consecutive top-five finishes in AL Cy Young balloting from 2013-2018 with the White Sox and Red Sox (and a sixth place in his first season as a starter in 2012).
In Saturday’s win, Matt Olson had two doubles and four RBIs, and Olson and Orlando Arcia each had a bases-loaded double to fuel big innings. Arcia cleared the bases against Dodgers starter Jack Flaherty in the three-run third and Olson did the same in a six-run sixth that also featured doubles from Gio Urshela and Jorge Soler.
“Just a good top-to-bottom win,” Olson said. “Sale threw great again, and everybody contributed.”
Sale remained consistently dominant, even against the loaded Dodgers.
“You do take it for granted a little bit,” Olson said. “It’s obviously one of the best lineups in baseball over there. You just come to expect him to come out and have a good start. He’s been amazing.”
Olson paused before summarizing Sale: “He’s a bulldog on the mound, he prepares the right way and pitches his ass off.”
Asked about taking Sale for granted, Braves catcher Sean Murphy smiled and said, “Yeah, thanks for reminding me not to. It’s special when he goes out there. That lineup’s no joke, and he worked his way through.”
Arcia, through a translator, talked about playing behind Sale: “Incredible. And I mean, not just tonight, every outing he’s had this season.”
Sale said the atmosphere at sold-out Truist Park added to the excitement, including R&B and pop-music star Usher throwing the ceremonial first pitch and visiting with the Braves in the clubhouse before the game.
“The energy in the stadium was great,” Sale said. “You know when you got the Dodgers coming in town, and I don’t know how many games we have left, but all these games now, we have to win. We know where we’re at in the standings. We know who we’re up against and what the deal is.
“And then we have some fun guys in the crowd. I saw Anduw Jones sitting right there a couple rows up. (Musician and record producer) Jermaine Dupri getting the game started, and Usher throwing out the first pitch.”
He added, “By the way, I think we need Usher back at the next game. He got things going for the boys, so we’ll just put it there.”
Told what Sale said about Usher getting “the boys” going, Olson smiled and said, “He did. It was cool. Especially being an Atlanta guy, I grew up listening to all his stuff. It’s an A-list celebrity, and an Atlanta icon.”
Sale is fast becoming an A-list celebrity in Atlanta sports. Before the game, Glavine said, “He’s always been one of the better pitchers in the game. But health has been an issue. So I don’t know that anybody could have expected him to come in and do what he’s doing, in terms of not only the production but just staying healthy. But it’s been a ton of fun to watch.”
Sale was an All-Star in seven consecutive seasons through 2018, going 99-59 with a 2.91 ERA in a heady stretch with the White Sox and Red Sox while averaging 198 innings and 240 strikeouts. He led the majors in innings (214 1/3) and strikeouts (308) in 2017 in his Cy Young runner-up season, his last fully healthy season until this one.
Sale pitched with elbow inflammation for part of 2019 and had Tommy John surgery the following spring, forcing him to miss nearly two seasons. During 2022 he missed time with a rib-cage stress fracture, a broken finger from a line drive and a broken wrist from a bicycling accident, and last season he had a stress reaction in his left scapula.
Sale made just 31 starts during 2020-2023, with 20 coming last season. He had a 3.16 ERA in the last 15 of those 20 starts, and the Braves and GM/president of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos saw enough to believe Sale, who went into the offseason healthy, could be a veteran difference-maker in their rotation.
They got him in exchange for young infielder Vaughn Grissom, with the Red Sox agreeing to pay $17 million of the $27.5 million Sale was owed in 2024 in the final season of a six-year $160 million contract. And less than a week after trading for Sale, Anthopoulos doubled down, signing Sale to a two-year, $38 million extension that superseded the previous contract. The deal includes an $18 million club option for 2026 with no buyout.
“It turned out to be a genius move, right?” Glavine said, smiling. “No, but I mean, he’s been obviously really, really big for the full rotation not just in terms of production, but I know he’s been a huge influence on a lot of those young guys, too. You can’t put a price tag on that.”
Sale could become just the fifth pitcher to overcome a major arm injury and win a Cy Young. He would join Justin Verlander, who came back from Tommy John surgery to win his third Cy in 2022; Jacob deGrom, who had his first Tommy John surgery in the minors and won two Cy Youngs with the Mets; Chris Carpenter, who had two shoulder surgeries before winning his 2005 Cy Young with St. Louis, and Hall of Famer Jim Palmer, who won three Cy Youngs with Baltimore after missing the 1968 season because of a shoulder injury.
“Good company,” Glavine said of that list.
Iglesias on record-setting run
When Braves closer Raisel Iglesias pitched a perfect ninth inning in Friday’s win against the Dodgers, it was his 30th consecutive appearance of at least one inning with no earned runs allowed, the longest such streak since earned runs were first tracked in the majors in 1913.
Iglesias had been tied for the previous longest streak set by Cleveland’s José Mesa, who had 29 straight in 1995.
The streak reduced Iglesias’s ERA to 1.16, second-best in the majors (minimum 40 appearances). The feat hasn’t received the proper recognition it deserves nationally, overshadowed as it’s been by playoff races and individual pursuits such as Shohei Ohtani approaching 50-50 and Sale’s Cy Young and pitching Triple Crown bids.
Iglesias’ feat is a streak of unmitigated dominance: 30 appearances, 35 1/3 innings, 43 strikeouts, five walks, .089 opponents’ batting average, .260 opponents’ OPS. Just two unearned runs allowed in 35 1/3 innings and zero homers.
His overall performance since being traded from the Los Angeles Angels to the Braves on Aug. 2, 2022, also seems to get relatively little fanfare. Since his Braves debut a few days after the trade, he has a 1.63 ERA in 144 appearances, the lowest ERA in the majors among pitchers with at least 100 games pitched in that period.
(Photo of Chris Sale: Kevin C. Cox / Getty Images)
