Chris Sale didn’t pitch in the Atlanta Braves’ final regular season game, but he still led the National League in pitching this summer.
The Braves ace won the pitching triple crown and officially led the National League in wins, earned run average, and strikeouts. Sale would finish the season with 18 wins, 225 strikeouts, and a 2.38 ERA.
This marks the second time in the past century that a pitcher has won the Triple Crown in both leagues in the same season. Detroit Tigers pitcher Tarik Skubal won the American League Triple Crown on Sunday. The last time this happened was in 2011, when Clayton Kershaw and Justin Verlander each won the award. Prior to that, the last time a horse won a double crown was in 1924.
Their victory should lock up Cy Young voting again this year, as no pitcher has failed to win the Cy Young Award after winning the Triple Crown.
Sale was scheduled to pitch in the second game of a rescheduled doubleheader against the New York Mets on Monday afternoon, but was scraped at the last minute due to back spasms. He reportedly first experienced back spasms on Sunday night. The Braves lost to the Mets late in Game 1 of the series, sealing the Mets’ playoff berth. The Braves must win Game 2 to advance to the postseason.
Although Sale and Skubal have very similar profiles as funky left-handers with enough speed to overwhelm batters, their paths to the Triple Crown were quite different.
Chris Sale started his career at age 35
Sale wasn’t a complete rebuild for the Braves, but you’d be hard-pressed to find an objective observer who didn’t think he was past his prime.
The 35-year-old was one of the best pitchers in baseball from 2012 to 2018, a period that culminated in a World Series victory with the Boston Red Sox. The cracks began to show in 2019, when Sale posted a career-worst 4.40 ERA and missed the final month and a half of the season due to elbow inflammation.
He underwent Tommy John surgery in 2020. Sale returned in 2021 but only started nine games. And in the 2022 season, he started only two games, which can only be described as “cursed.” Sale missed preseason play with a broken rib, then a broken finger, then a broken wrist. The latter occurred in a bicycle accident.
Sale had a relatively strong 2023 season, starting 20 games and posting a 4.30 ERA, but the perception remained that his best days were behind him. Still, the Braves opted to buy low, sending Vaughn Grissom, a young, light-hitting middle infielder, and $17 million in cash to cover his remaining salary to Boston in exchange for Sale.
And now this.
What’s changed for Sale? According to Baseball Savant, Sale has increased his arsenal by 1 mph overall and sacrificed his four-seam fastball to throw his slider at a career-high 40.3 percent of the time. His meaningful batted ball metrics decreased across the board, and batters had more difficulty beating him.
But most of all, Sale stayed healthy, which was unlikely at his age and with the most violent mechanics in baseball. As a result, he would win the first Cy Young Award of his career, something he never would have received during his time in the American League.
