Originally Posted by
moonslav59
A few things on Sale:
I have lost confidence, too, so I'm not arguing pitching him game 4 or 5.
His 6 BBs in his last 13 IP of the regular season were telling. He had 6 BBs in his first 30 IP of 2021.
What seems strange to me is the K numbers. Every out in that game vs the Nats was a K (7 out of 7 outs.). The last 2 games of the 2019 season- before his surgery- he K'd 25 in 14.2 IP. That one lone start he got in AUG of 2018, he K'd 12 in 5 IP (0 BB). I'm not sure where I'm going with this, but it seems like something is mixed up. Maybe he's trying too hard for the K, and bad things happen.
Sale had a 4.97 ERA over his last 3 games of 2021. While that is not good, it is better than some other choices, and he was yanked very early vs the Nats (2 ER in 2.1 IP). While there is no sugar coating that start, I'm not sure we can read too much into it, by itself. It's the next start right afterwards that blew my confidence in him out of the water. That was just scary bad. The 2Ks in 3 outs could not put a dent in the fact that he sucked.
Now, the whole sucks in the playoffs thing. Yes, he has declined at the ends of most of his seasons, and that raises durability and stamina issues, but that should not be in play, this year. He also only started 4 playoff games, before this year, so I'm not sure we can read too much into that, since his "bad playoff numbers" were highly influenced by his first playoff series in 2017 (9.2 IP 9 ER). in 2018, he pitched 15.1 IP, some in relief as most Sox starters did that year, and allowed just 11 hits. The 8 BBs were bad, but once again we see a very high K rate of 24Ks in 15.1 IP. That's 14 K/9 IP. Once again, I ask, is he trying to K batters too much in big games? The 7 ERs allowed in those 15.1 IP amounts to a 4.11 ERA, which does not look great, but certainly is not bad, when you figure those games were against the Yanks, Astros and Dodgers.
Again, I'm not defending Sale, but I'm not going to definitively judge him based on 5 playoff starts.