When it comes to gauging what was important Tuesday night in St. Petersburg, Fla., it was hard to prioritize anything over the image that Chris Sale provided.
But unfortunately for the Red Sox, there were certainly elements from their 3-2 loss to the Rays that came close to stealing the show.
Injuries. Late-inning ineptness. And another American League East loss. They were all on display for Alex Cora's club at Tropicana Field. But through it all, the night was truly highlighted by the return of Sale.
Pitching for the first time this season, Sale offered a version of himself not even seen during his nine regular season starts in 2021, which still resulted in a 3.16 ERA.
Five innings. Three hits. No runs. Five strikeouts. One walk. And a fastball that topped out at 96.9 mph and averaged 95.3 mph, almost two miles-per-hour better than last season.
"I’m not broken anymore," Sale told reporters. "It’s different this year. It’s definitely different this year. That’s all I’ve really got to say."
That was the good news.
The bad? It has to start with the health of hands, specifically those belonging to Trevor Story and Matt Strahm.
Story left the game after being hit by a Corey Kluber pitch in the fifth inning. The team was awaiting results of X-rays.
— Red Sox Stats (@redsoxstats) July 13, 2022
In the next inning, there was yet another incident involving a key player's hand, with pitcher Strahm the victim this time around. And, as was the case with Story, no definitive word was given about his status until X-rays were taken.
Every night it's some new clusterf pic.twitter.com/fMAQyQW56R
— Red Sox Stats (@redsoxstats) July 13, 2022
As for the game itself, the Red Sox' fortunes started going the wrong way after the Strahm injury (and errant Franchy Cordero throw). And then seemed to punctuate themselves in the seventh inning.
That was when the Sox put runners on first and third with nobody out only to see Alex Verdugo change the landscape dramatically by being picked off third. After the game, Cora took some blame, pointing to his strategy of having Franchy Cordero show bunt in the situation.
"We played a little bit different today and that’s on me,” Cora told reporters. “If anything, we don’t play that brand of baseball. With the personnel we had and where we were in the inning and the guys that were available and were not, we were trying to advance runners and he got picked off. My job is to put guys in situations to be successful and we haven’t played this brand of baseball in a while. Maybe that’s on me right there.”
When it was all said and done, the Red Sox have still not won a single series in 10 tries against A.L. East teams, (all of which now have a record of .500 or better after Baltimore improved to 44-44).
But, for the time being, at least they can hang their hats on the triumphant return of Sale. For now, that will have to do.
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