The feel-good Chris Sale story of late has suddenly started feeling lousy once again.
The Red Sox starter left the Fenway Park mound with two outs in the fourth inning, having thrown 59 pitches in his outing against the Reds. Sale was escorted to the dugout by a member of the Red Sox training staff, with the pitcher biting down on his glove for most of the way.
The team announced in the seventh inning that Sale's exit was due to left shoulder soreness.
"He will have an MRI tomorrow and we will know more," said Red Sox manager Alex Cora after his team's 8-2 win over the Reds. "Hoping for the best. Obviously, it didn’t look great. The veto was down in the second inning. He went from 95-90 (mph). We’ll wait and see."
It was the second time trainer Masai Takahashi and Cora had come out to check on Sale, who issued two more pitches to Nick Senzel in between mound visits.
"I cannot be irresponsible," said Cora regarding the decision to take out Sale. "We’ve been through this lane for a while. We know each other. Obviously it’s not easy because of what he has gone through, but at the end I have to take care of him. I know he tried to take care of us, but it doesn’t work that way from my end. At the end, it’s Chris Sale of the Red Sox. He wanted to finish it but, nah. He gave it a shot but after that you can’t be irresponsible."
Sale - who a run on five hits while striking out six and walking one - was coming off a start in which he had battled flu-like symptoms leading up to the outing in Phoenix.
Sale's velocity appeared slightly down for much of his appearance, with his fastball maxing out at 94.6 mph and averaging 93.2 mph. He left with the Red Sox carrying a 1-0 deficit.
The southpaw had surrendered just eight runs over 32 2/3 innings in his previous five starts, lowering his ERA to 4.72.
