Chris Sale Struck Out A Career High 17 Batters, The Red Sox Hit A Bunch Of Homers, And That's Pretty Much All That Happened

It’s just after 2am on the east coast, and I can finally bring myself to write about this game after staring at a blank monitor for three hours in disgust.

You can’t….you just can’t….you can’t strike out 24 batters in a game and lose. You can’t have your starter go out there, strike out a career high 17 batters and lose. You can’t do it. I’m sorry, but you can’t. Of course, it’s happened before. A guy by the name of Pedro Martinez was the last Red Sox pitcher to strike out 17 batters in a game that Boston lost. The Red Sox didn’t strike out 24 batters total that night, though. But still, just as mind numbing.

After all the talk about whether or not Chris Sale was toast following a rough start to the 2019 season, he’s arguably never been better over his last five starts. Five starts ago, Sale gave up four earned runs in five innings at Yankee Stadium and said, “This is flat-out embarrassing, for my family, for my team, for our fans.” After striking out 17 batters on Tuesday night over seven innings of two-run ball, Sale has a 1.91 ERA with 59 strikeouts over his last 33 innings. None of that was a typo. Those are real life numbers. Only one pitcher in Red Sox history has ever struck out more than 17 batters in a game, and his name is Roger Clemens. As you know, he struck out a major league record 20 hitters…twice.

Sale surrendered just three hits in this one, but unfortunately for him, one of them was a two-run home run off the bat of Nolan Arenado, who tends to do shit like that. The two-run shot isn’t what lost the game, although Sale did blame himself for the loss which is laughable. This game was lost when Sale departed after seven historic innings, and Brandon Workman served up a two-run shot of his own to give the Rockies a 4-3 lead in the eighth.

I saw a lot of irrational anger towards Workman following the homer, which I obviously understand because there’s no reason why Sale shouldn’t have walked out of this game with a win after the night he had, but Workman had also given up just two hits all season prior to entering this game. Yeah. All season. That’s not an excuse; it’s perspective. There’s a difference. He allowed two hits in that inning alone, and it cost the Red Sox and (more importantly) Sale a win.

The Red Sox had built that 3-0 lead on a trio of solo homers by Michael Chavis, who launched a ball over the moon, followed by JD Martinez and Rafael Devers. For JD, that was his third home run in the last two games, and Devers’ third homer in his last 10 games after going homerless over his first 32 games.

Boston didn’t go down without a fight, though. Mitch Moreland, who has been clutch since day one this season, knocked in the tying run in the bottom of the eighth, as the two teams stayed knotted up at four into the eleventh inning. Ryan Brasier, who has been scuffling in the month of May, walked the leadoff batter, got a couple quick outs, walked Arenado on four pitches which I didn’t mind, although that put the go-ahead run in scoring position for Mark Reynolds. Reynolds then ripped an RBI base hit back up the middle to give the Rockies their lead back. That was all she wrote.

Just like we couldn’t get too high on one win when the Red Sox were playing like shit, I’m going to do my best here to not lose my mind over one loss when the Red Sox are the hottest team in baseball. But goddamn. I can take a loss when the Red Sox had won 11 of 13, but not on a night when Sale punches 17 tickets and the staff as a whole whiffs 24 guys. You can’t lose those games, but it happened. Baseball’s weird like that sometimes. Just gotta shake that one off and keep it movin’.

Eduardo Rodriguez will be tasked with getting the Red Sox back to their winning ways in the series finale of this quick two-game series against German Marquez. Rodriguez has been nails over his last six starts, striking out 39 batters in 35.2 innings with a 2.78 ERA. For Colorado, Marquez has allowed 11 earned runs over his last 18.2 innings with a 5.30 ERA, while opponents are hitting him at a .299 clip.

Final score: Rockies 5, Red Sox 4 — 11 innings