Boston’s ace Chris Sale (34) is one of the best strikeouts in major league history. Boston fell in love with Seil’s exciting pitch and gave him a total of 145 million dollars (approximately 191.8 billion won) over the five years ahead of the 2020 season.
Sale, who debuted in the major leagues in 2010, drew a whopping 2064 K’s in 1678 innings of his big league career. 11.1 per 9 innings. This is the highest figure among starting pitchers who have completed 1,600 or more innings in major league history. One strikeout ability means that he is unmatched. However, from 2020, the first year of his contract with Boston, he began to suffer from an elbow injury.
In the end, he did not pitch in a single game in 2020, and disappeared from the fans’ view after undergoing elbow ligament reconstruction surgery (Tommy John surgery). He appeared in 9 games in 2021 and raised expectations for 2022, but he suffered from injuries in 2022 and was of no help to the team. Boston, which only played in two games and lost the most important ace in the plan, fell to the bottom of the earth.메이저놀이터
Sale received a total of $90 million (about 119 billion won) from 2020 to 2022. However, during this period, the number of balls thrown in the big leagues is only 838, up to 736 in 2021 and 102 last year. Looking at the number of balls compared to his annual salary, he received about 142 million won per ball. Immediately after his contract, the image of ‘eating and running’ became stronger.
Such sales are expected to return to normal this year. First of all, the basic signs are fine. Sale did not play a single exhibition game for three years from 2020 to last year after his elbow started to hurt. Even minus 2021 when he was in rehab after his surgery, he was always not in good shape at this time of year. However, he is throwing the ball healthily once this year.
He also has a good record. He pitched 5 innings in 2 games, giving up 3 hits and 7 strikeouts. He is proving that his words of thorough preparation are not false. For Boston, if Sale goes normally, it literally gets a thousand troops. So he checks Seil’s physical condition more carefully and is cautious.
It remains to be seen whether Seil is still on the right track or not. He needs to be backed by fastballs from his wild pitching form. Looking at Sale’s pitching against Minnesota on the 12th, the highest four-seam fastball speed was 95.1 miles per hour (about 153 km), and the average was 93.3 miles (about 150 km). This is about the same as in 2019, when his elbow was slowly hurting, but it’s definitely down from his good 2018 (four-seam average of 95.2 mph). There is still a way to go.
Boston manager Alex Cora has no intention of rushing the sale either. He met with reporters on the 13th and drew a line saying, “Sale does not appear in the opening game.” It’s unclear when his first game will be, whether he’ll go straight into the opening rotation or give him some extra rest. However, if he slowly improves his physical condition, there is an expectation that he will find his skills in earnest from May.
