Last season, Chris Sale simply made the trip to Boston. This time, he’s taking the mound in a premier pitching matchup.
2024 NL Cy Young Award winner Chris Sale will be returning to Fenway Park as a member of the Atlanta Braves in order to face off against the team that he won the 2018 World Series with: The Boston Red Sox.
This should be a good one if only because the pitching matchup appears to be a premier one. Chris Sale is starting to round into the form that made him return to the top of the pitching ladder in 2024. With that being said, he’s still had some issues when it comes to the results matching the process. Case in point: Sale wasn’t bad at all against the Pirates in his most recent start but he still ended up giving up three runs as the Braves ended up taking the loss in that one.
Still, that start came after the results finally matched the process during Sale’s start against the Reds. That was when Sale went 6.2 innings and struck out ten batters while only walking two and keeping Cincinnati off of the scoreboard while he was out there. That was the best start of Sale’s season so far and proof that he’s still more-than-capable of being a very effective starting pitcher. We’ll see if the results match the process this evening but it would genuinely be shocking if Sale wasn’t intensely competitive in this one.
He’ll have to be since Garrett Crochet is very likely going to be an extremely tough customer to deal with. Crochet has been riding on a high note lately, as he gave up two runs against the Blue Jays over seven innings on April 29 and he’s had two starts since then where he’s only given up one run in each of them. Outside of a couple of rough outings, Crochet has been pretty consistent for the Red Sox so far and it’s exactly what they expected from him when they pulled off the trade to bring him from the South Side of Chicago.
Speaking of that half of Chicago, the Braves certainly didn’t have a good time when they went to Chicago last season and got shut down by Garrett Crochet. Crochet pitched seven innings and only gave up one run in what ended up being part of an eventual (and rare) series win for the White Sox. Crochet was clearly in control of that one, as he struck out eight and only walked one batter while only giving up three hits in the process. Atlanta will surely be trying to set the record straight with the rematch, though the odds are probably against the Braves in this one.
This game might come down to which team can do better against their opposing left-handed starter and to be honest, the Red Sox have the edge in that department. Boston has hit .273/.354/.418 with a .341 wOBA and 115 wRC+ against left-handed batters in 428 plate appearances so far this season. Meanwhile, the Braves have only hit at a .204/.275/.340 clip against lefties, with a .272 wOBA and only 70 wRC+. If those trends continue then the Red Sox might be in position to pull off the win. With that being said, we all know that baseball is played on grass instead of paper so hopefully the Braves will be able to buck the trends and make some good stuff happen at Fenway this evening.
Game Info
Game Date/Time: Friday, May 16, 7:10 pm EDT
Location: Fenway Park, Boston, MA
TV: FanDuel Sports South / Southeast, MLB Network (out-of-market only)
Streaming: MLB.tv
Radio: 680 AM / 93.7 FM The Fan