Chris Sale has made just three starts since returning from last year’s Tommy John surgery, but you’d never know it by the way he’s mowing down Minnesota right now. Coming off a gem against Texas in his last start (no earned runs, five strikeouts over 71 pitches), the 32-year-old has been just as dominant against the Twins, not allowing a hit until the fifth inning.
Sale was really on his game in the third, striking out the side on just nine pitches. In baseball, that’s referred to as an “immaculate inning,” a feat the left-hander has achieved two other times in his career, with both occurrences coming in 2019. Sale’s immaculate inning against the Twins is only the fourth we’ve seen in MLB this season, with Kyle Finnegan, Michael King and Chad Green joining in the rare accomplishment. Among past and present MLB hurlers, only Dodgers legend Sandy Koufax has thrown as many immaculate innings as Sale.
The wheels fell off a little for Sale in the fifth—Willians Astudillo took him deep for a mammoth two-run homer over the Green Monster—but the Red Sox are still clinging to a 5-2 advantage with four innings left to play at Fenway.
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