The Boston Red Sox Wednesday, April 8, 2020

* The Boston Globe

Chris Sale sounds like a relieved pitcher

Peter Abraham

The 25-minute conference call conducted with Chris Sale on Tuesday was interrupted several times by screeching feedback or people talking loudly in the background.

Mute your phone, folks. We’re all working from home now.

But what did come through, loud and clear, was the tone in Sale’s voice as he discussed having Tommy John surgery last month.

It was one of relief. Since he first injured his elbow last season, the Red Sox lefthander has wondered how long his arm would hold up. Now he finally has a set path for what comes next.

Teammate Nate Eovaldi, who had Tommy John surgery as a junior in high school and again in 2016, advised Sale to face his rehabilitation work in two-week bites and not think too far ahead.

Eovaldi averaged 97.5 miles per hour with his fastball last season. Jacob deGrom, Stephen Strasburg, and Adam Wainwright all had the surgery and came back to be All-Stars.

The scar on Sale’s elbow is a map. Do the work, get to the end, and you’ll be able to pitch again. If Sale devotes himself, he could be ready closer to the start of next season as opposed to June. He’ll be 32 then.

“This is all I have to do for the next year. I can do this with 100 percent of my focus,” Sale said. “Much like pitching, I can make this competitive … The one thing I heard more than anything is the rehab process. If you dedicate your time and effort into rehabbing it the right way, not skipping any steps and doing things the right way, you’re going to be fine if not better than before.”

Rehabbing an injury during a pandemic will require creativity. Sale lives a short drive from JetBlue Park in Fort Myers, Fla., but the facility is shut down. That could change as soon as this week, but for now he will communicate with the Red Sox staff via FaceTime.

It’s still better than wondering if his elbow was going to pop every time he threw a pitch.

“I’m actually really happy with where I’m at right now,” Sale said. “I’ve been chasing a ghost for seven months right now. To have a definitive answer, to have a finish line … for me this is the first hard answer I’ve had in a long time.

“At the end of the day, I know what I’m getting. I know what’s at the end of the road. I’ve had doubts; I’ve had questions for over half a year now.”

Sale also addressed the lingering notion that he should have just had the surgery last season when he landed on the injured list.

“You can always look back. Hindsight is always 20-20. But for me, I sleep easier knowing that we did everything we could,” Sale said. “Some people call it wasting time and, hey, it is. We wasted time with this because the end result is Tommy John and we could have done this six months ago.

“But, having said that, I appreciate the process and I wouldn’t have been 100 percent go as I was this past time. We turned over every stone; we did every possible thing we could have to prevent this. I didn’t want to jump the gun.”

Sale actually felt fine when he reported to spring training and started throwing again. He felt like he had overcome the injury and it would be a normal season.

“I was getting after it,” Sale said.

He’s telling the truth. The Sox post a daily schedule before spring training workouts, and with maybe one or two exceptions, I watched every time Sale threw off the mound.

No pitcher, outside of Max Scherzer, throws full-tilt in February. But Sale had good command of his pitches and what appeared to be competitive velocity. That lasted until the first time he faced hitters.

With baseball shut down, Sale is home like the rest of us. He takes his wife and three sons for rides in his old Jeep and joked that he now throws a righthanded cutter with a Wiffle ball that Mariano Rivera wishes he had.

That will probably be his lifestyle for a while. Until he’s ready to pitch in minor league games, maybe a year from now, Sale can get his work done in Fort Myers.

The other positive is that he’s not missing any starts with the game on pause.

“There’s never a good time for [surgery] to happen. But if there ever was, this is probably about as good as you can get,” Sale said. “That obviously plays a role in the rehab and coming back. That makes me not feel as bad missing starts and having other people pick up my slack.”

Chris Sale was happy to get an answer on his arm, and now his focus is on rehab

Julian McWilliams

Chris Sale is happy to finally be out of the gray area.

For months, dating back to last August, the Red Sox lefthander had dealt with the unknown regarding his left elbow. He was shut down, then built back up, only to be shut down again, then once more.

Nevertheless, that final time at least gave him a verdict: He would need Tommy John surgery. Sale’s procedure was performed March 30, and for the first time in a long time, he has a clear vision moving forward.

“It’s kind of funny to say this, but I’m actually really happy with where I’m at right now,” said Sale Tuesday, speaking to the media via conference call for the first time since the surgery. “I’ve been chasing a ghost for seven months.

"This is the first hard answer I’ve had in a long time, and at the end of the day, I know what I’m getting. I know what’s at the end of this road.”

Sale’s last start came on Aug. 13. After experiencing discomfort in his elbow, he visited Dr. James Andrews, who said it was just inflammation. Yet it ultimately sidelined Sale for the remainder of the year.

Sale appeared to be on track this spring, throwing a simulated game in early March, but shortly thereafter, he was diagnosed with a flexor strain. Days later, spring training was suspended because of the coronavirus outbreak, though players initially were still allowed to go to JetBlue Park in Fort Myers, Fla. Sale started his throwing program and, once more, felt that same discomfort.

His surgery was performed by Dr. Neal ElAttrache in Los Angeles. While nonessential medical procedures have been discouraged during the pandemic, Sale said he and ElAttrache made certain they weren’t taking beds away from coronavirus patients.

Sale was sidelined with pneumonia for the start of spring training. Did it cross his mind that it could have been COVID-19? Yes, of course, he said. He got tested for the flu – it was negative. But his family hasn’t been sick, which he thinks is a good sign. He’d like to get tested to see if his body has the antibodies for the disease, just to know for sure.

Now Sale has some closure — or at least clarity. He is disappointed about not being able to take the ball every fifth day, but with the season on hold, he feels a bit less like he’s leaving his team on an island.

“There’s no doubt that, having surgery or missing time, there’s never a good time for it," he said. "But if there ever was, this is probably as good as you can get. That, obviously, plays a role in the rehab and getting back. Makes me not feel as bad for missing starts and having other people pick up my slack.”

Sale said he hopes his rehab takes 9-14 months. Because he lives in Naples, Fla., ideally he’d prefer to rehab at JetBlue Park, but it’s closed as a safety precaution, so he will get in work at his house.

He knows this won’t be an easy road, which is why he’s leaning on some teammates. Nate Eovaldi has had the surgery twice and has given Sale some pointers.

“I spent a lot of time talking with Nate," said Sale, "and he told me, ‘Don’t look at this as a year. Look at this as two weeks. In two weeks, you get your cast off. And then two weeks from then, you’re going to start doing range of motion.

" ‘Set little goals, because this thing can swallow you alive if you look at this as 10 months, a year, 14, 15 months. Set little goals so you can get little pats on the back along the way.’ ”

Sale could never change who he is as a pitcher. If he couldn’t pitch at full speed, he wouldn’t do it. He didn’t have the answers on how he would get back to who he was because there was little definition to his diagnosis. Now, though, he has some, and the rebuild to get back to being Chris Sale excites him.

“I take a lot of pride in what I do,” Sale said. “I have a chip on my shoulder — well, I guess I’ve got a chip in my elbow, too. I’ve got to find a way to get back to who I am and what I can do as best as possible and do whatever I can to get there.”

MLB would face significant hurdles to make Arizona idea become a reality

Alex Speier

Could all 30 major league baseball teams move to Arizona as soon as next month, permitting games to be staged in the absence of fans while minimizing outside contact amid the COVID-19 pandemic?

The idea is audacious and raises numerous questions that may prove impossible to answer satisfactorily at a time when public life has come to a screeching halt in the middle of a health crisis. Nonetheless, the fact that the concept has been spitballed in major league circles — and was outlined on Monday night by the Associated Press and ESPN.com — gives some insight into how sports leagues and MLB in particular are trying to find ways to salvage a 2020 season.

The Arizona idea would bring all 30 teams to the Phoenix area, where the presence of numerous spring training facilities within short drives allows the possibility of staging games with no fans in the stands. The absence of fans and the driving-distance proximity of ballparks — thus erasing the need for air travel — could limit potential exposure of players and others involved in staging games to those infected with the coronavirus.

But while the possibility was brought up in a conversation on Monday between MLB and Players Association leaders, the exchange represented the start of a dialogue rather than its conclusion. The idea is not full-fledged enough for the MLBPA to have formally vetted it with its members.

There are logistical questions, including whether it’s possible to have teams playing in outdoor spring training facilities in a desert, where game-time temperatures routinely would be above 100 degrees — making it difficult to schedule and thus broadcast games in prime time on the East Coast. Meanwhile, there are plenty of questions related to the health and safety not just of players but also hotel workers, umpires, trainers, clubhouse attendants, cooks, and stadium operations personnel.

Moreover, the league and the players continue to be guided by government orders — including the guidance of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s on mass gatherings, as well as federal, state, and local orders relating to assemblies.

ESPN’s report suggested that the Arizona plan might make a resumption of games possible as soon as next month. To this point, however, major league sources consider it premature to speculate on specific dates given the uncertain trajectory of the pandemic. The possibility remains that the season could be canceled.

On Tuesday, MLB underscored that it will defer to government regulations in planning games.

“MLB has been actively considering numerous contingency plans that would allow play to commence once the public health situation has improved to the point that it is safe to do so,” a league statement said.

MLB and its players have expressed a shared interest in playing as many games as possible this season, a goal that inevitably will result in atypical measures. MLB and the MLBPA already had established last month that neutral sites, games played in the absence of fans, doubleheaders, adjustments to game formats, and an extended season were all up for discussion.

Red Sox lefthander Chris Sale, one week removed from Tommy John surgery, recalled his participation in 2015 in a White Sox-Orioles game in which there were no fans in Camden Yards because of riots in Baltimore in the wake of Freddie Gray’s death while in police custody.

“Sometimes you’ve got to adapt. Sometimes you’ve got to do some things for the greater good of what’s going on around you,” Sale said. “Is it ideal? I would say no … If that’s what it takes, we’ve got to do it.”

Sale expressed greater uncertainty about whether players would be willing to isolate themselves in Arizona hotels and stay away from their families in order to minimize the risk of exposure to COVID-19.

“I don't know if I could look at my kids just through a screen for four or five months,” said Sale. “I think there's a lot of figuring out to do. I think there's a right way to do this, and I'm confident that Major League Baseball, the Players Association, all the owners, all the teams and players, I think that we're going to be able to find a way to come together and iron this stuff out, and figure out a way that's safe and is going to please the masses. Whatever that is, I don't know. I'm glad I'm not the one that has to figure all that out.”

No one has definitive answers, only the start of them, and any possibility of sports seasons will require unusual forms of innovation. That notion is being underscored in Taiwan, where the professional baseball league is scheduled to start games on Saturday. According to the website CPBLstats.com, in the absence of people attending the game, the Rakuten Monkeys will have 500 robot “fans” in attendance — a reminder that if there is to be a 2020 MLB season, it will look unlike anything that has preceded it.

Tony La Russa clears air on Dave Dombrowski firing, and other baseball thoughts

Christopher L. Gasper

There are no balls, no strikes, no outs, and no innings. We’re in a whole new dead-ball era as Major League Baseball, like the entire sports world, is mired in a dead halt hiatus due to the coronavirus pandemic. But that doesn’t mean we can’t talk about the national pastime to try to pass the time, so here’s a three up, three down pack of thoughts:

1. I recently touched base with Hall of Fame manager and former Red Sox vice president/special assistant Tony La Russa, currently sequestered in Arizona. A confidant of deposed Red Sox president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski, La Russa initially stayed on after Dombrowski was ousted in September, but left in November for a senior adviser role with the Los Angeles Angels, putting him closer to his Northern California home.

La Russa offered heartfelt words and fond memories of his two seasons working for the Sox and principal owner John Henry (the Globe’s owner). However, he wanted to clear the air on one of the murky reasons provided for Dombrowski’s removal — that he was insular and not inclusive, relying on pals La Russa and Frank Wren, former senior vice president/player personnel.

“That was really an inaccurate and unfair portrayal,” said La Russa. "I’ll swear on my children and my animals.

"I was there. I challenged that before I left. I'm telling you, man, 180 degrees the opposite of that, man. He's too inclusive. Frank would say, man, you're too inclusive.

"I know if right now you put a questionnaire out there and people could answer anonymously, there’s no doubt that 98 or 99 percent would say he was really great to work for and totally inclusive.

“I think that what happened at the end was it was really tough to figure out how to move on with the record he had. I think it was as simple as John and [chairman] Tom [Werner] said at some point you want to go in a different direction. They wanted to go with Chaim [Bloom]. It shouldn’t be one or the other.

"Dave did a great job, and they decided to go in a different direction. That’s OK. That’s their right.”

La Russa doesn’t think the 63-year-old Dombrowski, who won three consecutive division titles and a World Series in Boston but saddled the Sox with bad contracts and a pair of velvet luxury-tax handcuffs for 2020, is done building baseball teams.

“Most of the baseball world knows the kind of personality that he has and his style,” La Russa said. “And his style is one of inclusiveness, not exclusiveness. That burned a lot of us that that wasn’t corrected and was repeated.

"At some point, he’ll be back in the game, because he has as much experience and talent as anybody out there. He’s still young and has got tons of energy.”

But La Russa wanted to make it clear he loved his time in the Red Sox organization and holds the people in it in high regard.

"I had two really good years there," said La Russa. "I have people I still communicate with often there. I hope we're playing sometime this year because I was looking forward to seeing them.

“I do think they’re going in the right direction for what they did after Dave. I think they had the right to move on too, and they’re smart. They wanted to go in a different direction. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

2. The Players Association must recognize the fine line between cooperation during a crisis and capitulation before a collective bargaining agreement fight. MLB’s CBA expires following the 2021 season.

In late March, the MLBPA and MLB reached an agreement on coronavirus-related contingencies. The players agreed that if the season were canceled, owners would be on the hook for only $170 million in advance payments out of the estimated $4.5 billion in salaries. The MLBPA also allowed the draft to be trimmed from 40 rounds to as few as five this season and 20 in 2021. Draft bonus-pool figures were frozen at 2019 levels through 2021, and undrafted players’ signing bonuses were capped at $20,000, down from $125,000. The international signing period, set for July, can be delayed to January 2021.

What was once the paragon of pro sports unions ceded this much ground and mortgaged future members primarily in exchange for service-time concessions that ensure that even in a compromised season Mookie Betts will still be a free agent.

It continues a trend of the MLBPA agreeing to short-sighted salary depressants without fully recognizing the long-term effects: a de facto salary cap in the luxury tax; qualifying offers that depress the value and market for free agents; slotting, bonus pools, and overage penalties for paying draft picks, and a spending cap on international free agents.

Owners needed cost certainty on coronavirus salaries, absolutely. But they remain eager to exert greater control on talent costs. They used the cover of a crisis to coax the union into further concessions.

3. People should applaud players such as Texas’s Shin-Soo Choo, who gave $1,000 each to 191 Rangers minor leaguers; Colorado’s Daniel Murphy, who donated $100,000 to two organizations aiding minor leaguers; and St. Louis’s Adam Wainwright, who pledged $250,000 to benefit Cardinals minor leaguers. But what about demanding more of the billionaires who pay those salaries? Fans are quick to point out players’ financial means, but then seem to puzzlingly give even wealthier owners a pass. MLB teams have pledged to pay minor leaguers $400 per week through May, but that’s a substantial pay cut for some.

* The Boston Herald

Red Sox LHP Chris Sale in confident mindset after completing Tommy John surgery

Steve Hewitt

In a strange way, Chris Sale is relieved and even a little bit happy.

The Red Sox left-hander has stared down the barrel of Tommy John surgery for a long time, and even more so after elbow inflammation ended his 2019 season early last summer. He seemed almost resigned to the fact that surgery was inevitable after suffering a setback during spring training last month.

But now that it’s done with, Sale has something he didn’t have before: clarity.

“It’s kind of funny to say this but I’m actually really happy with where I’m at right now,” Sale said Tuesday on a conference call. “I’ve been chasing a ghost for seven months right now or up to that point. To have a definitive answer, to have a finish line. … For me, this is the first hard answer I’ve had in a long time and at the end of the day I know what I’m getting. I know what’s at the end of this road. …

“Now, like, obviously, this sucks. I’m putting my team in a tough situation. I’m relying on guys to pick up my slack, which is, you guys know, it’s not my style, it’s not my attitude, it’s not what I want. Moving forward. I now know that I can get after this rehab. It’s going to be nine to 14 months of just getting after it and being able to get my body back in shape and I’m going to have a better elbow than I did before. And that gives me confidence going forward.”

Even after the decision was made on March 19 that Sale needed Tommy John, though, it took even longer for his operation to actually be completed. The ongoing coronavirus pandemic has put a halt to surgeries viewed as elective around the country, so Sale needed to first find a doctor that was willing to perform the operation, which forced the delay, while also dealing with the optics of having elbow surgery in the middle of a global health crisis.

Sale finally had the surgery done on March 30 by Dr. Neal ElAttrache in Los Angeles, where he was tested for COVID-19 before the operation. The pitcher insisted that he and ElAttrache left no stone unturned in being sure that it was right to have the surgery.

“That was a big part of it,” Sale said. “Dr. ElAttrache and his staff … they were on a daily conference call with people making sure that what we were doing would have zero effect on anybody else dealing with this virus. That was No. 1 until we got under the knife was making sure that this was A, going to be possible to do and B, this would not take away the slightest bit of anything from anybody having to deal with this because at the end of the day, a virus is much more important than fixing my bum elbow. ElAttrache made that point many, many times to me, that we have to do this the right way. …

“That was a big deal for us, to make sure that this was the right thing to do at the right time, that it wouldn’t affect anybody else that was suffering.”

When Sale spoke after his first setback in spring training, he was visibly frustrated. That’s because he said he had gone through three months of rehab during the offseason without any issues. Even after a case of pneumonia delayed his start to spring training, he felt that he had been trending upward and all signs pointed to him being ready shortly after the season’s original start date.

But Sale said he wouldn’t change anything about the process, and doesn’t regret not getting the surgery done earlier. He’s at peace knowing he and the team did everything in their power to avoid getting the surgery.

“It didn’t work out but at the end of the day I know 100 percent that myself, the doctors, the Red Sox, everybody did everything we possibly could to make this work and I’m OK with that,” Sale said. “I’m more than OK with that.”

Sale, who’s at home in Florida, now turns his attention to an extensive rehab that will likely take 12-15 months before he returns. He’s still in an arm cast that he said will be taken off Thursday as he does some light work to begin his rehab.

Sale said he has leaned on teammates Nathan Eovaldi, Brandon Workman and Ryan Brasier — who have each had Tommy John surgeries — for support as he begins his recovery. Eovaldi, who’s had the procedure twice, has told Sale to set small goals as he starts a long journey.

And having been in the game a long time, and seeing pitchers come back from the surgery, Sale is confident he’ll be even stronger when he returns at some point in 2021.

“The one thing I’ve heard more than anything is the rehab process,” Sale said. “If you dedicate your time and effort into rehabbing this the right way, not skipping any steps and doing things the right way, you’re going to be fine, if not better than before, so on that end of it, I have zero question in my ability to work this, in my work ethic. I have even more confidence in the people I’m surrounded by. …

“I have a lot of confidence going forward to know that my elbow is going to be better than it was before and hopefully I get 10 more great years out of it.”

Coronavirus: Red Sox ace Chris Sale wonders if he might have had COVID-19

Tom Keegan

Injured Red Sox left-hander Chris Sale is not unlike so many around the world right now, looking back on the flu-like symptoms he had not so long ago and asking himself: Might I have had COVID-19?

Sale has more reason to wonder than most. Don’t forget, before the condition of his elbow again overshadowed all news about him, he began spring training workouts late because he suffered from what the Red Sox termed a mild case of pneumonia.

“Honestly, yes, no doubt,” Sale said when I asked on a conference call with reporters Tuesday whether he has wondered about it.

As medical experts throughout the world work to refine antibody tests for COVID-19, which would be particularly helpful for medical professionals working with patients who have contracted the virus, Sale at some point would make for an interesting candidate for one.

“I actually want to see. … It’s crazy to look at my symptoms and think about the symptoms of people that have the COVID-19 virus and some of the similarities,” Sale said. “We may never know, but I’m definitely hoping not.”

By that, he meant his hope is that he did not infect anyone.

“As contagious as this virus is, I think that if I’ve had it, somebody in my family and a lot of people at the park would have been infected by it,” Sale said. “I don’t want to make light of it and joke about having something like that, but it definitely crossed my mind. And I asked some people about it. I got tested for the flu and it came back negative. Obviously, the tests for the virus weren’t out yet. If there is a way to find out, I would love to find out, but I don’t know, I think it might be a stretch.”

As baseball players and owners try to think of ways to get back to work, the sport has in Sale a smart guy who did a nice job of highlighting what games and the seasons they make do for the psyche of those who watch.

“Sports by no means is on as important a level as what’s going on right now,” Sale said. “We’re in a pandemic. This is a worldwide pandemic, 12,000 to 13,000 people have died (in the United States). That’s almost half the capacity of Fenway Park. That’s wild, but I think people have an outlet with sports. That’s a way for them to escape reality sometimes. They kind of decompress.”

He elaborated.

“I think in a way some people enjoy getting away from things that are bothering them, through watching sports, not just baseball, but everything,” Sale said. “The sooner we can get back on the field and bring a little bit of levity for what’s going on for people around the world, obviously in a safe way, you know, we’ve got to dot all the I’s and cross all the T’s, make sure we don’t step on any boundaries and cross any lines. There is a right way to do this, and we definitely need to figure that out, but the sooner we get back out there across all major sports, the better off we’re going to be.”

Unconventional methods of bringing baseball back have been discussed in the media, including playing games in empty ballparks.

Sale knows what it’s like to see a baseball game in an empty stadium. He was with the White Sox, who lost to the Orioles, 8-2, at Baltimore’s Camden Yards on April 29, 2015, in what has come to be known as the Freddie Gray Game. Gray, 25, was arrested for alleged possession of a knife and while being transported in a police van suffered fatal injuries to his spinal cord. An African American living in a community that had a stormy history with the Baltimore Police Department, Gray died on April 19, seven days after being arrested. On April 27, rioting in downtown Baltimore resulted in the governor of Maryland declaring a state of emergency. The first two games of a three-game series were postponed as White Sox players remained in their hotels. The third game was played in an empty stadium. Sale didn’t pitch, but he was there.

“That was actually a really weird experience, not only that, but we had like three or four days off in a row,” Sale said of the game played without a crowd. “It was definitely different. The game was way faster, I can tell you that, but it was different. It was a weird feeling having nobody in the stands, but hey, sometimes you’ve got to adapt for the greater good of what’s going on around you and that’s the situation we were in. Is it ideal? I would say no.”

One dramatic scenario that seems like a bit of a suspension of reality that has been proposed has the season resuming in mid-May and the entire remaining four-and-a-half-month schedule being played in Arizona in empty stadiums. The players essentially would be shut off from the world, including their families.

“I think it’s going to be tough. I don’t know if I could look at my kids just through a screen for four or five months,” Sale said. “Same thing goes with my wife, not being able to be around. That’s a long time.”

He stopped short of ruling it out though.

“I think there’s a lot of figuring out to do,” Sale said. “I think there’s a right way to do, and I’m confident Major League Baseball, the Players Association, all the owners, all the teams, players, I think that we’re going to be able to come together and iron all this stuff out and figure out a way that’s safe and a way that’s going to please the masses. Whatever that is, I don’t know. I’m glad I’m not the one who has to figure all that out.”

Then Sale uttered a sentence that just as easily could have applied to the 2020 MLB season: “I’m as interested as anybody to see how this all shakes out.”

Red Sox’ 10-best seasons in the last 10 years: No. 6, 2017 Craig Kimbrel

Jason Mastrodonato

In 2017, when the big screen above center field at Fenway Park went black and Ted Nugent’s guitar started playing the introduction to “Stranglehold,” the Red Sox’ game was over.

From his major league debut with the Atlanta Braves until July 15, 2017, Kimbrel never blew a save at Fenway, going a record 30 straight games with the streak intact.

And at most points during the 2017 season, he was one of the most dominant relievers baseball has ever seen.

He threw one of the best breaking balls anyone in a Red Sox uniform has thrown over the last decade. On May 7, when he struck out the left-handed-hitting Joe Mauer on a curve that started high and off the plate, then finished with a sharp break that barely clipped the edge of the corner.

Mauer, one of the most calm and collected stars in MLB for years, lost his mind on home plate umpire Dan Iassogna. The replay review showed what we all knew: Iassogna got it right.

It was a truly ridiculous pitch.

Kimbrel’s curveball became the story of 2017, perhaps the best year of Kimbrel’s career.

He started the year by holding right-handed batters hitless in their first 47 at-bats until finally, on June 3, Mark Trumbo hit a single. It was Kimbrel’s 23rd appearance of the year.

His fastball was averaging 99 mph, the hardest velocity of his career, but he was throwing his curve 31 percent of the time, highest in five seasons.

Because his fastball command was so good that year, his curve became even more dominant. Batters whiffed at the pitch more often (55%) than they made contact.

One day in early May, Kimbrel entered a 1-1 game in Milwaukee and struck out five of the six batters he faced. Three of them were on fastballs down the middle. Two were on breaking balls that just clipped the edge.

The ninth inning resulted in three strikeouts on nine pitches, Kimbrel’s first career immaculate inning and just the third in Red Sox history (Pedro Martinez in 2002 and Clay Buchholz in 2012).

There were days that year when opposing teams would only see two pitchers: Chris Sale and Kimbrel.

“We’re seeing two pitchers on our staff right now, both he and Sale, that are doing things that are very uncommon with the number of swings and misses,” former manager John Farrell said at the time. “With Kimbrel, you see the power he’s generating, the swing and miss.”

The strikeouts were incredible. He was fanning about half the batters who stepped to the plate.

His numbers in May alone earned him Player of the Month honors when he collected seven saves, striking out 25 guys in 12 ⅔ innings while opponents went just 1-for-40 off him.

“I think he’s been undoubtedly the best closer in baseball as long as he’s been in the league,” Matt Barnes said that May. “Guy throws anywhere from 97-100 mph from down here — rises, moves — and then he has a breaking ball that comes right off of that. You guys are watching and having as much fun watching as I am.”

Kimbrel earned his sixth All-Star Game nod.

“I think I’ve slowed down a little bit,” Kimbrel said. “Kind of slowed the game down a little bit. I’m not letting it speed up on me as much. Just realizing that nothing can happen until I let go of the ball so I think a difference between me at 22 and me now, that would probably be the biggest difference.”

He made Aaron Judge look silly on a rising 98-mph heater that Judge hacked at and missed in a key 5-4 win over the Yankees in the Bronx on June 6, which would put the Sox one game behind the Yanks in the American League East.

“Honestly it’s probably a little easier because he’s taller,” Kimbrel said. “A high fastball, from what I’m used to throwing, probably looks a little sweeter to him coming in there.”

He struck out five Yankees that night.

But because of how incredible Kimbrel had been all season, the questions in Boston were constantly fired at Farrell: Why not use him more? Why not use him earlier in the game?

“Honestly, I would prefer to throw one inning two or three nights in a row,” Kimbrel explained that June. “I’ve got to do what I’ve got to do to help this team win. I think it’s five times so far this year or six times I’ve come in in the eighth and helped the team win in that way. I think toward the end of the year we might see it a little bit more.”

The debate didn’t end when Farrell was fired after the season.

One could argue that Sale shouldn’t have stayed in the game to face lefty-masher Alex Bregman in the final game of the American League Division Series against the Astros. Bregman took Sale deep, Farrell replaced him with Kimbrel and Kimbrel allowed a run as the Sox lost, 5-4, and saw their season end.

Kimbrel’s final numbers were among the best ever in a season by a closer: 5-0 with 35 saves in 69 innings with 126 strikeouts, 14 walks, a 1.43 ERA and 0.68 WHIP.

THREE QUOTES

Catcher Sandy Leon on May 9:

“I feel like it’s easy for him. He strikes out two guys like it’s nothing.”

Outfielder Mookie Betts on May 11:

“He’s going out there and guys are swinging and didn’t look like they were really close.”

Sale on Oct. 9:

“He has as good of stuff, if not the best stuff, I’ve ever seen on a baseball field.”

THREE STATS

Kimbrel finished by striking out 49.6 percent of the batters he faced.

His strikeout rate of 16.43 per nine innings stands as the third-highest of all-time by a reliever (min. 50 innings), behind only his own 16.66 mark in 2012 and Aroldis Chapman’s 17.67 mark in 2014.

He struck out all three batters he faced in a perfect inning 10 times during the year, the second-most such innings in the majors behind only the Indians’ Corey Kluber, who did it 11 times but over 203 ⅔ innings.

MORAL OF THE STORY

Some pitchers were built to record three outs. No more, no more less.

THE TOP 10 IN THE LAST 10 YEARS

No. 7. 2018 J.D. Martinez

No. 8. 2016 Rick Porcello

No. 9 2011 Dustin Pedroia

No. 10 2016 Jackie Bradley Jr.

* The Providence Journal

SALE’S PITCH: Chris Sale is hoping MLB finds a way to play this summer

Kevin McNamara

Chris Sale will not be participating if the Red Sox play any baseball in the 2020 season but he’s hoping his teammates and all of Major League Baseball can return to the diamond.

Speaking on a conference call on Tuesday, Sale discussed his Tommy John surgery that took place in late March and also a desire to see baseball sometime this spring or summer. MLB acknowledged that it has held discussions with the Players’ Association about a scenario in which thousands of players and staff would quarantine in Arizona to expedite the start of a season as soon as May. The league said it has not “sought or received approval” from federal or local authorities on the idea.

“I think they’ll find a way that’s safe and will please the masses. Whatever that is, I don’t know,” Sale said. “Thankfully I’m not the one that has to figure all that out. We have all the right people in all the right spots to figure out the best way to do this. I’m as interested as anybody to see how all this shakes out.”

MLB issued the following statement on its plans, which are clearly in the infancy stages and may not prove fruitful depending on the status of the coronavirus situation nationwide.

“MLB has been actively considering numerous contingency plans that would allow play to commence once the public health situation has improved to the point that it is safe to do so,” it said in the statement. “While we have discussed the idea of staging games at one location as one potential option, we have not settled on that option or developed a detailed plan. While we continue to interact regularly with governmental and public health officials, we have not sought or received approval of any plan from federal, state and local officials, or the Players Association.”

Sale said he’s responded well to his Tommy John surgery that took place in late March at Kerlan-Jobe Institute in Los Angeles by surgeon Dr. Neal ElAttrache. He says he’s come across many pitchers in his career who have needed the surgery and responded very well. That’s clearly his goal as well as he begins a five-year, $145-million contract with the Sox that runs through the 2024 season.

“I’ve seen this time and time again,” he said. “I’ve seen numerous Tommy John surgeries and watched them pitch post-Tommy John. The one thing I’ve heard more than anything is that if you dedicate your time and effort into rehabbing this the right way, not skipping any steps and doing things the right way, you’re going to be fine, if not better than before.”

Sale said he was “shocked” when he developed arm tightness after throwing a batting practice in early March and while dejected, he now feels “I’m going to have a better elbow that I did before.

“I have a lot of confidence going forward and that’s making the light at the end of the tunnel a little bit brighter,” he said. “If you’re telling me the only thing I have to do is work hard at rehabbing this elbow, we’re in. There’s no more discussion. I have lot of confidence going forward to know that my elbow is going to be better than it was before and hopefully I get 10 more great years out of it.”

Sale said arranging the time window for the surgery in Los Angeles wasn’t easy due to the restrictions around elective procedures at many health facilities. He said he passed a test for the coronavirus and worked with ElAttrache to make sure having the procedure was “the right thing to do at the right time and wouldn’t affect anybody that was suffering (from the virus).

“There were a lot of things that we had to do to make sure that this was right,” he said. “That was No. 1 until we got under the knife — making sure that this was going to be possible to do and that this would not take away the slightest bit of anything from anybody having to do with this (virus) because at the end of the day a virus is much more important than fixing my bum elbow.”

Sale, who turned 31 last week, is back in Florida and, while he misses rehabbing with Red Sox medical personnel at JetBlue Park, he’s enjoying the bonus time with his three children (9 years old, 3 years old, 4 months old).

“It’s different, it’s cazy. It’s weird not going to the park. It’s almost like an extended offseason,” he said. “I can throw a junior football with a halfway decent spiral maybe 20, 25 yards. I’ve got a right-handed cutter that Mariano (Rivera) wishes he had with a Whiffle ball.”

* MassLive.com

Chris Sale, Boston Red Sox ace, enters Tommy John surgery rehab feeling relieved, energized: ‘I’ve been chasing a ghost for seven months’

Chris Cotillo

As Chris Sale started answering questions on a conference call with reporters Tuesday, a loud and persistent echo interrupted his first two responses and made it impossible for him to be heard.

Sale, in an effort to give the best answers possible, kept plugging along. Much like how he’s tackling the early stages of his rehab after undergoing Tommy John surgery last week, he took the technical difficulties in stride.

“It sounds like someone’s trying to remix my answers,” Sale joked, “T-Pain style.”

In a far cry from the somber and dejected tone he struck at the JetBlue Park podium last time he spoke to the media on March 5, Sale cracked a series of jokes in his first media session since surgery was recommended. The last time Sale spoke, the lefty held back tears as he discussed his balky elbow and the guilt he felt over dealing with a serious injury one year after signing a $145 million contract.

Thirty-three days and one elbow surgery later, Sale is in a much better place. The uncertainty he felt since first feeling elbow pain in mid-August is gone. A well-marked path toward recovery lies ahead.

“It’s funny to say this but I’m actually really happy with where I’m at right now,” Sale said. “I’ve been chasing a ghost for seven months, to have a definitive answer. To have a finish line. Everyone’s like, ‘This sucks, sorry to hear about this news.’ For me, this is the first hard answer I’ve had in a long time. At the end of the day, I know what I’m getting. I know what’s at the end of this road.”

Sale missed the last six weeks of last season due to elbow inflammation and took things slowly once he started throwing again in December. After recovering from pneumonia at the beginning of spring training, he felt no arm pain as he worked his way up to game action.

Then, one day after throwing a 15-pitch live batting practice session on March 1, Sale felt soreness in his elbow. After an MRI, he shut things down for two weeks and tried ramping back up before the Red Sox determined that surgery was required.

Before giving it one more shot last month, Sale seemed resigned to his fate, saying he was at a “fork in the road” with surgery looming if his arm didn’t respond well to rest.

“The thing I was upset with the most was that I truly thought I was in the clear,” he said Tuesday. “You guys saw me throwing bullpens, you saw me playing long toss. I was ripping the thing. I was getting after it. I had all the confidence in the world coming into spring training that my arm was going to be as good, if not better, than it has been my entire career.”

Sale’s surgery marked the end of an 18-month period during which his arm never felt right. He missed significant time with a shoulder injury in 2018 before struggling out of the gate last year and ultimately ending his season six weeks early.

Tommy John surgery was discussed late last summer, but Sale instead received a platelet-rich plasma (PRP) shot and was prescribed an extended period of rest. The Sox and their best pitcher exhausted all the options before deciding to proceed with surgery.

“I sleep easier knowing that we did everything we could,” Sale said. “Some people call it wasting time. And hey, it is. We wasted time because the end result is Tommy John. We could have done this six months ago. Having said that, I appreciate the process and I wouldn’t have been 100% go as I was this past time. We turned over every stone. We did every possible thing we could have to prevent this. And I’m okay with that.”

Sale’s fate is a little more palatable now that baseball is on hold due to the coronavirus pandemic, as the delayed start to the season (and the potential for a full cancellation) will limit the number of starts he will miss. The beginning of the season has been delayed indefinitely, making it almost certain Major League Baseball will not play a 162-game schedule this season.

As he begins his rehab, Sale is leaning on his teammates who have had Tommy John surgery in the past. Right-handers Ryan Brasier, Nathan Eovaldi and Brandon Workman have all been through the process and each gave Sale advice.

“Set little goals, because this thing can swallow you alive if you look at this as 10 months, a year or 14-15 months," Sale said. “Set little goals so you get little pats on the back along the way.”

Sale, who is relaxing with his wife and three sons at home in Naples, will have his arm cast taken off Thursday. He has already learned how to throw right-handed -- at least when it comes to tossing a football or a wiffle ball cutter Sale claims Mariano Rivera wishes he had.

If JetBlue Park reopens, Sale plans to do much of his rehab at the team’s facility. If it doesn’t, he plans on communicating with team trainers via FaceTime. Either way, he’s happy to finally have the end of his arm troubles in sight.

“I’m sitting out a year,” Sale said. “The team put their faith in me to pitch at the highest level for five more years. At best, I’m only going to give them four. I take a lot of pride in what I do and I don’t take it lightly. I have a chip on my shoulder. Well, I guess I have a chip in my elbow, too. But I’ve got to find a way to get back to who I am and what I can do as fast as possible.”

Chris Sale, Boston Red Sox ace, made sure Tommy John surgery wouldn’t burden healthcare system during COVID-19 outbreak: ‘The virus is much more important than fixing my bum elbow’

Chris Cotillo

Because of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, Chris Sale’s attempt to schedule his Tommy John surgery was much more complicated than normal. With doctors around the country postponing elective surgeries, the Red Sox ace had to ensure his procedure was not taxing an already overburdened medical system.

Dr. James Andrews, the primary doctor who Sale consulted with when his elbow started acting up last summer, shut down all elective surgeries at his facilities in Florida and Arizona. So Sale, looking to have his operation as soon as possible after it was deemed necessary on March 17, turned to Dr. Neal ElAttrache, a renowned orthopedist who was still performing surgeries in California.

Sale consulted with Dr. ElAttrache for about a week before flying to Los Angeles and having his surgery last Monday. The Red Sox declined to address the scheduling of Sale’s procedure until after it happened.

Sale, like Sox chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom, who spoke directly to Dr. ElAttrache about his concerns, was assured that his surgery would have no bearing on any treatment for COVID-19 patients.

“There were a lot of things we had to do to make sure this was right,” Sale said. “Dr. ElAttrache and his staff, I think it was Cedar-Sinai and UCLA, they were on a daily conference call with people making sure what we were doing would have zero effect on anyone else dealing with this virus. This was No. 1 until we got under the knife. Making sure this was a) going to be possible to do and b) wouldn’t take away the slightest bit of anything having to deal with this. At the end of the day, the virus is much more important than fixing my bum elbow.”

Surgeons around the country have suspended elective surgeries for a variety of reasons, including preserving personal protective equipment, ensuring medical workers aren’t accidentally exposed to the virus and allowing as many doctors and nurses as possible to help combat the pandemic. Despite not displaying any symptoms, Sale was tested for coronavirus after arriving in Los Angeles and doctors went forward with the procedure once the test came back negative.

Sale is confident that his procedure, although somewhat controversial, was an ethical choice at a trying time for the nation’s healthcare system.

“That was a big deal for us to make sure it was the right thing to do at the right time and that it wouldn’t affect anyone else that was suffering,” Sale said.

Coronavirus: Chris Sale, Boston Red Sox ace, has wondered if spring illness was COVID-19

Chris Cotillo

The ongoing coronavirus pandemic has left Red Sox ace Chris Sale wondering if the serious illness he battled at the beginning of spring training was COVID-19.

Sale was late arriving to camp in mid-February due to a a flu-like illness that turned into a case of pneumonia. At the time, a flu test came back negative but Sale wasn’t tested for coronavirus, which had not yet spread widely and was not yet being tested for in the United States.

With the benefit of hindsight, Sale believes some of his symptoms mirrored the reported symptoms of COVID-19. As more and more cases have surfaced in recent weeks, Sale has started to wonder if he had the virus without knowing it.

“Honestly, yes. No doubt," Sale replied when asked if it has crossed his mind that he potentially had the virus. "It has been talked about a lot. I don’t know if there’s a test now, but I think they’re working on a test to see if you have the antibodies for it, meaning you’ve had it... to take a test and see if you had it. It’s crazy to look at my symptoms and think about the symptoms of people that have the COVID-19 virus, and some of the similarities. We may never know, but I’m definitely hoping not.”

The Red Sox ordered Sale to stay away from the team’s facility for a short period in February so that he didn’t spread his illness to teammates or other team employees. He returned to camp once he felt better and was told by doctors that he was no longer contagious.

“As contagious as this virus is, I think if I had it, somebody in my family and a lot of people at the park would have been infected by it,” Sale said. “I don’t want to make light of it and joke about having something like that, but it definitely crossed my mind and I asked people about it. I got tested for the flu and it came back negative. The tests for the virus weren’t out yet. If there’s a way to find out, I’d love to find out. I don’t know. I think it might be a stretch.”

Before Sale’s elbow flared up in early March, the lefty was scheduled to miss the first two weeks of the season due to the delay caused by his sickness. He’ll miss the entire 2020 season -- if one is played -- after undergoing Tommy John surgery last week.

MLB coronavirus plan: Red Sox’s Chris Sale doubts players would want to be away from families, says he’s not sure he could ‘look at his kids through a screen for 4-5 months’

Chris Cotillo

Under Major League Baseball’s proposed plan to start its season in Arizona, players may be forced to go months without seeing family members in order to preserve the relative isolation within the league’s circle of essential personnel. That stipulation -- one of many obstacles the league and its players will have to overcome in order to finalize the plan -- is expected to be a major hurdle, as players have already begun to express their unwillingness to leave their wives and kids for a long period of time.

Red Sox starter Chris Sale will miss the entire 2020 season after undergoing Tommy John surgery, so any unique plan to play baseball will not include him. If circumstances were different, Sale said Tuesday, he’d have a hard time leaving his wife and three sons, who live in Florida.

“I think that’s going to be a case-by-case issue. I think it’s going to be tough," Sale said. “I don’t know if I could look at my kids just through a screen for four or five months. Same thing goes for my wife, just not being able to be around them for a long time. But people have done it in harsh scenarios, I guess. I think there’s a lot of figuring out to do.”

Sale’s oldest son, Rylan, frequently spends time with his dad in the Fenway Park clubhouse during the summer. Sale has been passionate about the role of players’ family members before, ripping White Sox ownership in 2016 when teammate Adam LaRoche abruptly retired after the team asked LaRoche’s 14- year-old son to spend less time around the team.

MLB’s tentative plan calls for empty stadiums to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus in the stands. Sale was actually on hand for the only crowdless game in Major League history, when the White Sox faced the Orioles in an empty Oriole Park at Camden Yards in April 2015 due to the civil unrest following the death of Freddie Gray.

“That was actually a really weird experience,” Sale said. “Not only that, but we had three or four days off in a row leading up to that game. I think a few other games got postponed. It was definitely different. The game was way faster. It was a weird feeling having nobody in the stands. Hey, sometimes you’ve got to adapt. Sometimes you’ve got to do things for the greater good of what’s going on around you. That’s the situation we were in. Was it ideal? I would say no. But at the same time, you have to be sensitive to your surroundings and what’s going on. At the time, that’s what it took.”

Sale believes baseball will play an instrumental role in helping the country heal once the effect of the coronavirus pandemic lessens. On March 12, the league suspended spring training and indefinitely delayed the start of its regular season due to the virus.

“We’re in a pandemic. This is worldwide,” Sale said. "It’s already taken 12-13,000 people’s lives (in the U.S.). That’s almost half the capacity of Fenway Park. That’s wild. I think people have an outlet with sports. That’s a way for them to escape reality sometimes and decompress. I would love to be able to get back to that.

“Some people kind of enjoy getting away from things that are bothering them or getting out in the world through watching sports,” he added. “Not just baseball, but every sport. The sooner we can get out on the field and bring a little bit of levity to what’s going on for people around the world… obviously in a safe way. We’ve got to dot all the I’s and cross all the T’s. We don’t want to step in any boundaries or cross any lines. There’s a right way to do this and we definitely need to figure that out.”

Coronavirus: MLB ‘has not settled’ on Arizona isolation plan as top option, continues to discuss scenarios to begin season

Chris Cotillo

In a statement issued Tuesday morning, Major League Baseball said it has not settled on the option to stage games at one central location, adding that discussions about how to start its delayed season are ongoing.

ESPN’s Jeff Passan reported earlier Tuesday that the league was seriously considering staging its entire schedule in Arizona while keeping players in relative isolation. The plan, which has backing from high- level government officials, would call for games to begin in late May or early June, ending the delay to the start of the regular season caused by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

“MLB has been actively considering numerous contingency plans that would allow play to commence once the public health situation has improved to the point that it is safe to do so," the league said. "While we have discussed the idea of staging games at one location as one potential option, we have not settled on that option or developed a detailed plan. While we continue to interact regularly with governmental and public health officials, we have not sought or received approval of any plan from federal, state and local officials, or the Players Association. The health and safety of our employees, players, fans and the public at large are paramount, and we are not ready at this time to endorse any particular format for staging games in light of the rapidly changing public health situation caused by the coronavirus.”

The Arizona plan, according to Passan, would call for players and essential team employees to live in relative isolation, traveling exclusively from the hotel to the ballpark and back. The Phoenix area has 10 spring training fields and the Diamondbacks’ Chase Field within a 50-mile radius, simplifying travel.

Many obstacles remain before such a plan could be finalized, as players have expressed a reticence to spend a long period of time -- potentially up to 4 ½ months -- away from their families. The league and the MLB Players Association have vowed to explore a wide range of creative options in order to accomplish their joint goal of playing as many games as possible.

* RedSox.com

'Ghost' exorcised, Sale sure return will be strong

Ian Browne

BOSTON -- Speaking to the media Tuesday for the first time since he underwent Tommy John surgery eight days ago, Red Sox lefty Chris Sale expressed the determination to dominate his rehab much in the same way he has leveled opposing hitters through the years.

“I now know that I can get after this rehab,” he said. “It’s going to be nine to 14 months of just getting after it and being able to get my body back in shape, and I’m going to have a better elbow than I did before. And that gives me confidence going forward.”

In fact, Sale sounded far more upbeat compared to when last he discussed his uncertain health at a news gathering over a month ago. At that point, all Sale knew was that he had a flexor strain in his left arm. The plan was to rest for a week to 10 days and try to resume throwing.

At that point, Sale had a sound of resignation in his voice -- as if he knew that Tommy John surgery would be the inevitable outcome. It turned out he was right.

Now that he has clarity, he will tackle that structure on a daily and weekly basis.

“It’s kind of funny to say this, but I’m actually really happy with where I’m at right now,” Sale said. “I’ve been chasing a ghost for seven months right now or up to that point. To have a definitive answer, to have a finish line, [is important].

“I’ve said [it] to a few people. Everyone is like, ‘This sucks, sorry to hear about the news' -- all this stuff. For me, this is the first hard answer I’ve had in a long time, and at the end of the day I know what I’m getting. I know what’s at the end of this road.”

Sale first started experiencing left elbow discomfort following his outing at Cleveland last Aug. 13 -- what turned out to be his final start of 2019.

“I’ve had doubts, I’ve had questions, like I said, for over half a year now -- six, seven months,” Sale said. “Now, like, obviously, this sucks. I’m putting my team in a tough situation. I’m relying on guys to pick up my slack, which as you guys know, it’s not my style, it’s not my attitude, it’s not what I want.”

As such, the Red Sox are expected to lean a lot more heavily on starters like Eduardo Rodriguez and Nathan Eovaldi going forward, as well as newly signed Martín Pérez and Collin McHugh.

However, the way Sale looks at it, he’s at least at a stage now where he can get competitive again -- and competition is what has always driven him.

“For me, this is all I have to do for the next year. I can do this with 100 percent of my focus,” Sale said. “Much like pitching, I can make this competitive. I have a chip on my shoulder -- and I guess I have a chip in my elbow, too -- and I've got to find a way to get back to who I am and what I can do as best as possible, and do whatever I can to get there.”

For insight, Sale has leaned on Eovaldi, who has undergone Tommy John surgery twice.

“I've spent a lot of time talking with Nate, and he's told me, 'Don't look at this as a year. Look at this as two weeks. In two weeks, you get your cast off, and then two weeks from then you're going to start doing range of motion, and then two weeks from then... . Set little goals, because this thing can swallow you alive if you look at this as 10 months, year, 14-15 months,”’ Sale explained.

The one thing that has become clear as Sale has done his due diligence in recent weeks is that the pitchers who aced the rehab process are the ones who have made the strongest comebacks from Tommy John surgery.

“That’s kind of making the light at the end of the tunnel a little bit brighter. If you’re telling me the only thing I have to do is work hard at rehabbing this elbow, we’re in,” said Sale. “There’s no more discussion.”

Once Sale -- whose five-year, $145 million extension kicks in this year -- does get back to the mound for the Red Sox -- which he hopes is not too far into the 2021 season -- he plans on pitching like the seven-time All-Star he is.

“I have a lot of confidence going forward to know that my elbow is going to be better than it was before," he said, "and hopefully I get 10 more great years out of it."

* ESPN.com

Red Sox ace Chris Sale 'feeling good' after Tommy John surgery

Joon Lee

Boston Red Sox ace Chris Sale is taking pride in the small victories these days.

After undergoing Tommy John surgery on March 30 and with nothing else to do but stay home, Sale is counting down the days until his cast comes off.

Sale, speaking with the media in a conference call for the first time since the operation, said he is "feeling good" after having his ulnar collateral ligament repaired. He hopes the circumstances allow him to rehab at the team's spring training facility in Fort Myers, Florida, which is close to his offseason residence.

"I don't know if there's going to be a safe way to get in there and do my rehab," Sale said. "But worst case, I can do it at my house. I've been provided some different things for working out and rehabbing obviously my elbow. The first couple of weeks is light stuff anyways, basically working on flexion and extension. I try to do most of that over FaceTime and kind of doing stuff from my house."

Sale expressed a sense of relief about having the procedure on his left elbow. Amid the worst season of his career -- he posted a 4.40 ERA in 25 starts -- Sale received a platelet-rich plasma injection from Dr. James Andrews, temporarily avoiding surgery.

Sale acknowledged that Tommy John surgery was always a possibility during his career, and he said he avoided going under the knife until he felt all other options had been explored.

Red Sox chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom previously said the team expects Sale's recovery to last around 14 to 15 months, a typical recovery timeline.

"I didn't want to jump the gun and get surgery because it's available," Sale said. "I wanted to make sure that this was something that needed to be done."

Sale entered spring training believing he had a clean slate of health, throwing baseballs without pain until one of his first competitive sessions with batters. Previous games of catch and high-effort bullpens did not inflame his elbow, but tightness started developing again when Sale started facing off against live batters.

"I really thought I was in the clear," said Sale, who was beginning the first year of his five-year, $145 million extension that he signed after the Red Sox won the World Series in 2018. "I was ripping this thing. I was getting after it. I had all the confidence in the world coming into spring training that my arm was going to be as good, if not better, than it has been my entire career."

One day, however, Sale woke up and couldn't move his arm. The decision to undergo Tommy John fell into his lap. When Dr. Andrews made the decision to suspend performing Tommy John surgeries because of the coronavirus pandemic, Sale worked with Dr. Neal ElAttrache in Los Angeles, coordinating with the UCLA medical staff to ensure that the elective operation would have no effect on the hospital systems amid the flood of patients going to hospitals across the country.

He also was aware of the criticism about undergoing an elective procedure during a pandemic.

"At the end of the day, a virus is much more important than fixing my bum elbow," Sale said. "Dr. ElAttrache made that point many times to me that we have to do this the right way. I even got tested for the virus once I got out there. It came back negative. That was a big deal for us, that this was the right thing to do at the right time and it wouldn't affect anybody else that was suffering."

Sale has leaned on teammates Nathan Eovaldi -- who's undergone two Tommy John surgeries -- and relievers Brandon Workman and Ryan Brasier for guidance on making it through the rehab process for the procedure. The quarantine will allow Sale to put all of his focus and energy into making sure his rehab process goes as smoothly as possible.

"I have nothing else going on," Sale said. "I can focus 100% of my time and effort on this to come back as good as I can. I owe that to my team, my teammates and to the fans. I'm sitting out a year and the team put its faith in me to pitch at the highest level for five more years. And at best, I'm only going to give them four. For me, I take a lot of pride in what I do and don't take it lightly. I have a chip on my shoulder. I guess I have one in my elbow, too."

* WEEI.com

Chris Sale explains process of arranging his surgery

Rob Bradford

The news of Chris Sale getting Tommy John surgery was one thing. When he should be getting it was an entirely different conversation.

Speaking on a conference call with reporters Tuesday -- is first media availability since undergoing surgery -- Chris Sale explained the process that led up to actually undergoing the operation in Los Angeles.

"That was a big part of it," he said of making sure there was clearance to get the surgery. "I guess that’s why I’m talking to you guys now instead of two weeks ago or 10 days ago or whatever it was, that going through all this, there were a lot of things that we had to do to make sure that this was right, and Dr. (Neal) ElAttrache and his staff, I think it was Cedar-Sinai at UCLA, they were on a daily conference call with people making sure that what we were doing would have zero effect on anybody else dealing with this virus. That was No. 1 until we got under the knife was making sure that this was A. going to be possible to do, and B. this would not take away the slightest bit of anything from anybody having to deal with this because at the end of the day, a virus is much more important than fixing my bum elbow. ElAttrache made that point many, many times to me, that we have to do this the right way, we have to do this the right way. I even got tested for the virus once I got out there. Obviously it came back negative. That was a big deal for us, to make sure that this was the right thing to do at the right time, that it wouldn’t affect anybody else that was suffering."

When asked about finally having gone through the procedure, Sale noted that there was a sense of relief after it was all said and done.

"It’s kind of funny to say this but I’m actually really happy with where I’m at right now," he noted. "I’ve been chasing a ghost for seven months right now or up to that point. To have a definitive answer, to have a finish line. I’ve said to a few people, everyone is like, this sucks, sorry to hear about the news, all this stuff. For me, this is the first hard answer I’ve had in a long time and at the end of the day I know what I’m getting. I know what’s at the end of this road. I’ve had doubts, I’ve had questions, like I said, for over half a year now, six, seven months. Now, like, obviously, this sucks. I’m putting my team in a tough situation. I’m relying on guys to pick up my slack, which is, you guys know, it’s not my style, it’s not my attitude, it’s not what I want. Moving forward. I now know that I can get after this rehab. It’s going to be nine to 14 months of just getting after it and being able to get my body back in shape and I’m going to have a better elbow than I did before. And that gives me confidence going forward."

What Chris Sale told the media when speaking for first time since Tommy John surgery

Rob Bradford

For the first time since undergoing Tommy John surgery Red Sox pitcher Chris Sale held a conference the media Tuesday afternoon. Here are some highlights:

- "I'm really happy where I'm at right now. I've been chasing a ghost for seven months now ... For me, this is the first hard answer I have gotten ..."

- He has no regrets about not having surgery prior to now: "I sleep easier knowing we did everything we could ... We turned over every stone."

- "I've known my entire career Tommy John could be an option... I truly thought I was in the clear." He thought his arm was going to be as good as ever coming spring training. When he felt pain, "It was a punch to the gut."

- Said first live bullpen session everything was fine and he was symptom-free, throwing 95 mph. After a couple of hours following post-workout exercises started getting tight. The next day went in talked to trainers about what he was feeling and led to getting an MRI.

- As part of the 2015 game at Camden Yards with no fans in the stands, Sale remembered, "That was actually a really weird experience. ... It was a weird feeling having nobody in the stands. But sometimes you have to adapt."

- Sale admitted that he has wondered if he had coronavirus when shut down with pneumonia at the beginning of spring training. Also notes that if he did have it -- as contagious as it COVID-19 is -- he probably would have passed it on. "If there is a way to find out I would love to find out."

- Says he now has a right-handed Wiffleball cutter which "Mariano (Rivera) wishes he had."

- "There is never a good time (for surgery) but if there ever was this would probably be it."

- Has talked to teammates who have undergone surgery such as Brandon Workman, Ryan Brasier and Nathan Eovaldi. Their advice was to look at the process two weeks at a time instead of a year-long endeavor. "I have a chip on my shoulder ... Well, I guess I have a chip in my elbow, too."

- Says he believes being isolated from family for four or five months, as has been suggested in MLB's recent plan to get back to playing, would be tough. He is confident powers that be will come up with a good solution.

- Sale was tested for COVID-19 prior to his surgery.

* NBC Sports Boston

Chris Sale on MLB's proposal to play in Arizona: 'Going to be tough'

John Tomase

If MLB really wants to open the season next month in Arizona, Chris Sale expects that players will do their part to make it happen. One line that will be hard to cross, however, is spending four or five months without their families.

Speaking on a conference call on Tuesday to address his recent Tommy John surgery, Sale weighed in on the possibility of players leaving everything and everyone behind to sequester in the desert

"That's going to be a case by case issue," he said. "To answer your question, I think it's going to be tough. I don't know if I could look at my kids just through a screen for four or five months. The same things goes for my wife, not being able to be around her, that's a long time. But people have done it in harsh scenarios, I guess."

Under one proposal, players would relocate to Arizona next month and the season would be played in spring training ballparks, as well as other sites around Phoenix. In order to minimize risk of infection, however, players would live in isolation, traveling only between hotels and ballparks.

"I think there's a lot of figuring out to do," Sale said. "I think there's a right way to do this, and I'm confident that Major League Baseball, the Players' Association, all the owners, all the teams and players, I think that we're going to be able to find a way to come together and iron this stuff out, and figure out a way that's safe and is going to please the masses. Whatever that is, I don't know."

Games would be played without fans, an experience Sale remembers from 2015, when Baltimore riots following the death of Freddie Gray forced the White Sox and Orioles to play in an empty Camden Yards.

"That was actually a really weird experience," Sale said. "It was definitely different. The game was much faster, I can tell you that, but it was a weird feeling having nobody in the stands. But hey — sometimes you've got to adapt. Sometimes you've got to do some things for the greater good of what's going on around you. That's the situation we were in. Is it ideal? I would say no. But at the same time, you have to be sensitive to your surroundings and what's going on. At the time, that's what it took with the safety of not only the players and the staff, coaches, umpires, everybody at the stadium, but people coming into the stadium as well. It just made the most sense moving forward playing the game.

"If that's what it takes, we've got to do it. Sports by no means is on as important a level as what's going on right now. We're in a pandemic. This is worldwide. It's taken 12 or 13 thousand people's lives. That's almost half the capacity in Fenway Park. That's wild. I think people have an outlet with sports. That's a way for them to escape reality sometimes. They just kind of decompress. I would love to be able to get back to that."

Sale hopes baseball can help provide the housebound with an escape.

"I think the sooner we can get back on the field and bring a little bit of levity to what's going on for people around the world, obviously in a safe way — we've got to dot all the I's and cross all the t's, we don't want to step on any boundaries, cross any lines — there's a right way to do this," he said. "We've definitely got to figure that out. But I think the sooner we get back out there across all major sports, the better off we're going to be."

Hindsight 2020: Bobby Valentine's role in Daniel Bard's Red Sox freefall

John Tomase

There's plenty of blame to heap on Bobby Valentine for the disaster that was the 2012 Red Sox.

He created an atmosphere of paranoia among his coaches, fostered distrust among his players, and allowed a lack of accountability that permeated the organization to start at his door.

It only took the Red Sox one year to clean up his mess, with John Farrell overseeing the Boston Strong World Series that erased the memory of 2012 before it could fester.

That said, Valentine botched the implementation of one decision with truly lasting consequences: the transition of Daniel Bard from reliever to starter, which is today's managerial installment in our Hindsight 2020 series.

In an alternate universe, Bard is still closing games for the Red Sox as a 34-year-old All-Star entering his 12th season. Instead, he's effectively out of baseball, undone by a mystifying inability to throw strikes that started on Valentine's watch and snowballed into something heartbreaking.

More than 10 years later, it's hard to overstate the impact Bard made when he arrived in 2009 as a flame- throwing reliever, just three years after being selected in the first round of the 2006 draft out of North Carolina.

He struck out 63 in just 49.1 innings as a rookie before making the leap in 2010, posting a 1.93 ERA in 73 appearances and striking out over a batter an inning. He regressed in 2011, posting a 2-9 record and losing four games during the September collapse that hastened the departures of both manager Terry Francona and GM Theo Epstein, opening the door for Valentine.

Before the new skipper even arrived, Bard had already planted the seeds with general manager Ben Cherington. Drafted as a starter, Bard saw a return to the rotation as a chance to make real money. It did not escape his notice that All-Star closer Jonathan Papelbon received $50 million in free agency from the Phillies the same offseason that converted reliever C.J. Wilson cashed in for $75 million with the Angels.

Though dominant eighth-inning arms were invaluable when Bard arrived in 2009, they weren't the showstoppers they are today. Bard's former UNC teammate, Andrew Miller, would help usher in that era a few years later with the Yankees and Indians, and he has been well-compensated for it. His career earnings should top $80 million if the 2020 season is played.

So with that backdrop, it made sense that Bard would want to rejoin the rotation. That the Red Sox would agree wasn't a slam dunk, since he had started his career in horror-show fashion at High-A Lancaster, allowing a staggering 44 baserunners in just 13.1 innings in 2007, exhibiting some of the symptoms that would derail his career five years later — namely an inability to throw strikes.

Those struggles prompted a move to the bullpen, and Bard soared to the majors two years later.

By the time spring training rolled around in 2012, Bard expressed confidence that the transition would work. Valentine wasn't nearly as sold, with stories leaking that he'd return Bard to the bullpen at his first opportunity, and an infamous answer of "could be" just days into the season when asked if Bard might assume the closer's role in the wake of struggles by Mark Melancon and Alfredo Aceves. It's doubtful that stance did much for Bard's confidence as a starter.

"I wouldn't be doing it if I didn't think it was going to work," Bard insisted at the time. "I'm all in. I'm committed to it and they are, too."

Bard opened the season as the fifth starter and seemed to find his groove in late April, limiting the Rays to one run in one start (albeit while walking 7) and then beating the White Sox with seven effective innings of three-run ball.

Then came the June start in Toronto that changed everything. Bard missed the plate so badly, it was scary. He lasted just 1.2 innings after surrendering five runs on only one hit, walking six, drilling two, and sending two fastballs to the backstop. He left Valentine no choice but to yank him before he hurt someone.

Unfortunately, irreparable damage had been done to his career, and Bard seemed to sense it that night.

"I allowed something to happen when I switched roles,'' he said. "I think it's just maybe that we tried to turn me into a starter rather than just take the same pitcher I was out of the pen and move that guy to the rotation, which is probably what we should've done."

Bard disappeared for three months before returning on Aug. 31 in a 20-2 loss to the A's as a reliever. He allowed runs in five of his final six relief appearances. He made just two appearances in 2013 — earning a World Series ring as a result — and hasn't appeared in a big league game since.

He announced his retirement in 2017, but attempted a comeback with the Rockies this spring, allowing seven runs and eight baserunners in just 1.2 innings.

It's entirely possible his career would've ended this way no matter which path he chose — after all, the wheels had already started coming off in 2011, when he posted a 10.64 ERA in September. But even though Valentine isn't to blame for the decision to make Bard a starter, the half-hearted way he implemented it and the mixed messages he sent along the way set the formerly dominant reliever on a path to ruin.

* Bostonsportsjournal.com

Chris Sale determined to recover from Tommy John surgery

Sean McAdam

Chris Sale, naturally, wasn’t hoping to undergo Tommy John surgery. He knows the rehab road ahead is a long and lonely one.

But in a sense, Sale is relieved that after months of uncertainty, he finally has some clarity to his situation.

“I’m actually really happy with where I’m at right now,” said Sale in a conference call with reporters Tuesday. “I’ve been chasing a ghost for seven months right now. And to have a definitive answer and have a finish line. … Everyone’s like, ‘Oh, this sucks, sorry to hear about the news…’ But for me, this is the first hard answer I’ve had in a long time and at the end of the day, I know what I’m getting. I know what’s at the end of this road.

“I’ve had doubts, I’ve had questions, for over half a year now. And now, obviously, this sucks. I’m putting my team in a tough situation and I’m relying on guys to pick up my slack, which is not my style, not my attitude, it’s not what I want. But moving forward, I now know that I can get after this rehab. It’s going to be nine to 14 months of just getting after it and being able to get my body back in shape. And I’m going to have a better elbow than I did before. That gives me confidence going forward.”

Sale was sidelined last August with elbow soreness, but on the advice of several doctors, chose to rehab throughout the winter. It’s been suggested that he would have been better off having the procedure done last September, and thus, getting a seven-month head start on the process.

But the truth is, Sale wasn’t ready to acquiesce then.

“You can always look back. Hindsight is always 20-20,” he said. “But for me, I sleep easier knowing that we did everything we could (to avoid the surgery). Some people call it wasting time. And hey, it is, we wasted time with this because the end result is Tommy John and we could have done this six months ago.

“But having said, I appreciate the process and I wouldn’t have been 100 percent go as I was this past time because we turned over every stone. We did everything possible thing we could have to prevent this. And I’m OK with that. I didn’t want to jump the gun and get the surgery just because it was available. I wanted to make sure that this was something that needed to be done.”

Sale was disconsolate last month when he felt pain in his elbow after his first live batting practice on March 1.

“I truly thought I was in the clear,” he said. “You guys saw me throwing bullpens, saw me playing long toss. I mean, I was ripping this thing. I was getting after it. I had all in the confidence in the world, coming into spring training, that my arm was going to be as good if not better than it had been my entire career. That’s why I was kind of down and a little bit angry.

“I had gone through three months of throwing with absolutely zero setbacks, zero bumps in the road. It was a punch to the gut. Everything was trending upward, everything was looking good. Then I wake up one morning and can’t move.”

Sale said he finished his last live batting practice session symptom-free, with no discomfort whatsoever. But within a few hours, he felt tightness in his forearm and elbow area. Later that night, he began losing range of motion in his left arm and grew more concerned.

The next day, he alerted the training staff of the issue and the process began anew.

Now, with the game shuttered for the foreseeable future, he begins the long, arduous process.

”There’s never a good time for this to happen,” he said. “But if there ever was, this is probably as good as you can get with everything going on in the season. It makes me feel not as bad, missing starts and having other people pick up my starts. So for me, I’m just going to focus on this rehab and do the best possible job I can do a better job when I come back.”

The pitcher is also aware of the fact that he underwent a procedure that some might consider elective at a time when medical resources are being stretched thin by the coronavirus and said every effort was made not to impact the care of others.

“Going through this,” said Sale, ”there were a lot of things we had to do to make sure this way right. Dr. (Neal) ElAttrache and his staff — I think it was Cedar-Sinai and UCLA — they were on a daily conference call with people, making sure what we were doing would have zero effect on anyone else dealing with this virus. This was No. 1 until we got under the knife – making sure this was A) going to be possible to do and B) wouldn’t take away the slightest bit of anything having to deal with this.

“At the end of the day, the virus is much more important than fixing my bum elbow. ElAttrache made that point many, many times to me, that we had to do this the right way. I even got tested for the virus once I got out there. Obviously, it came back negative. That was a big deal for us, to make sure it was the right thing at the right time and it wouldn’t affect anyone else that was suffering.”

Games without fans? Chris Sale has been there before

Sean McAdam

In an effort to salvage at least part of the 2020 season, Major League Baseball has discussed holding the entire season in Arizona, using the 10 Cactus League spring training ballparks as well as Arizona Diamondbacks’ Chase Field to play games with no fans present, several outlets reported.

The proposal — which MLB clarified Tuesday morning was merely one under consideration and far from concrete — would call for players to essentially be quarantined in hotels in Arizona and be apart from their families for as long as four and a half months.

“I think it’s going to be tough,” said Red Sox pitcher Chris Sale of the potential plan in a conference call with reporters. “I don’t know if I could look at my kids through a screen for four or five months. Same thing goes for my wife, just not being able to be around them for a long time.

“But people have done it in harsh scenarios, I guess. I think there’s a lot of figuring out to do. I think there’s a right way to do this and I’m confident Major League Baseball and the Players Association, all the owners, teams and players, I think we’re going to be able to find a way to come together and iron this stuff out and figure out a way that’s safe and going to please the masses.

“Whatever that is, I don’t know. I’m glad I’m not the one who has to figure all that out. I think we have all the right people in the right spots to figure out the best way to do that. I’m as interested as anybody to see how this all shakes out.”

Sale actually has already experienced playing games with no fans present. In 2015, he was part of a Chicago White Sox team that played the Baltimore Orioles at an empty Camden Yards. Downtown Baltimore was the site of riots and civil unrest following the death of Freddie Gray.

”That was actually a really weird experience,” he recalled. “It was definitely different. The game was way faster, I can tell you that. But it was a weird feeling having nobody in the stands. But sometimes you’ve got to adapt, sometimes you have to do some things for the greater good for what’s going on around you and that’s the situation we were in.

”Was it ideal? I would say no. But at the same time, you have to be sensitive to your surroundings and what’s going on. At the time, that’s what it took, with the safety of not only the players, staff, coaches and umpires but also everybody at the stadium and people coming into the stadium as well. It made the most sense, moving forward and playing the games.

“If that’s what it takes, we’ve got to do it. Because sports is by no means on an important level for what’s going on right now. We’re in a pandemic, this is world wide. This has taken 12-13,000 people’s lives. I mean that’s almost half the capacity of Fenway Park. That’s wild.

“But I think people have an outlet with sports. That’s a way for them to escape reality sometimes and kind of decompress. I would love to be able to get to that, though obviously I wouldn’t be playing. In a way, some people kind of enjoy getting away from things that are bothering them through watching sports — not just baseball, but all of them. And I think the sooner we can get back on the field and bring a little bit of levity to what’s going on for people around the world — obviously in a safe way. We’ve got to dot all the i’s, cross the t’s. There’s a right way to do this and we definitely need to find out. But I think the sooner we can get out there across all major sports, the better off we’re going to be.”

* The Athletic

Ranking the 10 best seasons ever by Red Sox first basemen

Chad Jennings

First base was to be one of the least predictable positions on the Red Sox roster this season. Could Mitch Moreland stay healthy? Would Michael Chavis regain his early 2019 production? How soon could Bobby Dalbec take over (and would he live up to the hype if he did)? We’ll have to wait to find out.

For this list, we’re holding each player to only one spot (otherwise, it would be four or five names repeating over and over again).

1. Jimmie Foxx – 1938 WAR AVG OBP SLG OPS+ 7.6 .349 .462 .704 188

This is not the best season on this list – that’s coming up next – but it is the best true first base season in Red Sox history.

In his third year with the team, Foxx did not quite have a career year, but 1938 was the only year in which he led the American League in all three slash categories, and he had a career-high 175 RBIs. He hit .405 at Fenway Park that season and won his third and final MVP award.

Foxx had a few Philadelphia seasons that were better, but this was his best in Boston, helping cement his place as the best first baseman in Red Sox history.

If you limit the search to those who played 100 games at first base, Foxx’s 7.6 WAR in 1938 is easily the best in franchise history. In fact, by that 100-game standard, Foxx has three of the top five first base seasons for the Red Sox.

2. Carl Yastrzemski – 1970 WAR AVG OBP SLG OPS+ 9.5 .329 .452 .592 177

By WAR, clearly a better season than Foxx in ’38, but we’re dropping it to second because Yaz started 65 games in the outfield. He was primarily a first baseman – first time in his career that he played more games at first than in left – but his 1970 was not purely a first base season.

Yastrzemski began that 1970 season in his usual left field, but in mid-June, George Scott moved from first to third, Yastrzemski took over at first, and Billy Conigliaro – brother of right fielder Tony – finally got a chance to play every day in left. Conigliaro finished with his best season in the majors, and Yastrzemski had his second-best. He finished fourth in MVP voting and was named All-Star Game MVP (he had four hits while playing center field and first base). In 328 at-bats as a first baseman that season, Yastrzemski had 22 home runs and a 1.060 OPS, numbers slightly better than when he played left field.

If not this season, we could have included Yastrzemski’s 1973 when he played even more first base and had a 5.5 WAR.

3. Adrian Gonzalez – 2011 WAR AVG OBP SLG OPS+ 6.9 .338 .410 .548 155

Nine months after this season earned him a Gold Glove, a Silver Slugger and a seventh-place finish in MVP voting, Gonzalez was traded to Los Angeles in perhaps the most famous salary dump in Red Sox history (at least, until the Mookie Betts/David Price deal two months ago).

How good was Gonzalez’s one full season in Boston? Go to FanGraphs and rank the highest career WAR of all Red Sox first basemen, and Gonzalez ranks in the top 10 despite playing fewer than 300 games for the organization.

The Red Sox acquired him from San Diego in December 2010, a trade that cost the Sox sixth-round draft pick Anthony Rizzo.

Gonzalez immediately lived up to his billing. He had a 1.006 OPS in the first half of 2011 and started in the All-Star Game ahead of Miguel Cabrera. Gonzalez’s 213 hits led all of baseball (tied with Michael Young) and he finished third in the American League in OPS.

He was putting up remarkably similar numbers the following year when he was traded to facilitate the Josh Beckett and Carl Crawford salary dump with the Dodgers.

4. Mo Vaughn – 1998 WAR AVG OBP SLG OPS+ 5.6 .337 .402 .591 153

The hardest choice on this list was picking which Vaughn season to include. From 1995 through 1998, the left-handed slugger had four straight seasons of at least a .963 OPS. And that stretch really includes 1994 as well, when he played only 111 games. His lowest OPS+ during that time came in 1995, when he won MVP. He was also beloved for his work with the Jimmy Fund Clinic.

But which of his seasons was the best? By most metrics, his MVP season doesn’t quite measure up, which makes it a draw between 1996 and 1998. Baseball-Reference credits 5.6 WAR for each season, so it really is a toss-up.

Our gut instinct was to go with 1996 – lower OPS+, but a whopping 71 additional plate appearances – but the tiebreaker became Vaughn’s performance in the 1998 division series. The Red Sox lost that series to the Indians, but Vaughn was a monster, hitting .412 with two home runs, two doubles and an .882 slugging percentage. He and Nomar Garciaparra drove in 18 of the 20 Red Sox runs.

5. Kevin Youkilis – 2008 WAR AVG OBP SLG OPS+ 6.3 .312 .390 .569 144

For reasons similar to Yastrzemski, Youkilis is tough to place on a list like this. Youkilis was rarely only a first baseman. His highest WAR season was 2009, but he split that season almost perfectly between first base and third base, and his highest OPS+ came in 2010, but he played only 102 games total.

We’ll go with his 2008 season as the first base standout. He was not yet playing a lot of third base, with only 32 starts at the hot corner. Mike Lowell was still playing every day – but Youkilis was emerging as one of the best hitters in the American League.

Up to that point, Youkilis had lived up to his reputation for elite on-base ability, but he was only a .434 career slugger through four seasons. In 2008, the power really emerged with career highs of 29 home runs and 43 doubles. Youkilis also finished third in MVP voting, the highest such finish of his career.

6. Buck Freeman – 1901 WAR AVG OBP SLG OPS+ 4.8 .339 .400 .520 155

The Society for American Baseball Research has called him “the first legitimate home run hitter in baseball history,” and that was not a celebrated achievement at the time. Many in the game didn’t like home runs at the turn of the last century, and Freeman had hit 25 of them in 1899 (more than double the next-closest slugger).

He wound up joining the Red Sox franchise – then called the Americans – for its inaugural 1901 season, and promptly set a strong standard at first base.

Freeman led the team in batting average and had the second-highest OPS in the league. His 12 home runs – half of them inside-the-park — were also second-most in the American League. Freeman would go on to lead the franchise in home runs and RBIs each of its first four seasons. No Red Sox player would break his single-season home run record until Babe Ruth in 1919. His single-season RBI record would stand until Jimmie Foxx surpassed it in 1936.

Freeman stayed with the Red Sox until 1907 and was inducted into the Red Sox Hall of Fame in 2018. Though he was mostly an outfielder, his debut season at first base still stands out in franchise history.

7. George Scott – 1967 WAR AVG OBP SLG OPS+ 4.4 .303 .373 .465 138

During the Impossible Dream season, Scott’s OPS jumped more than 50 points in the second half, and he slashed .342/.419/.526 in the decisive final 10 games. He finished the year with the second-highest WAR and second-best batting average on the team (behind, of course, Yastrzemski). His OPS was behind only Yaz and Tony Conigliaro. He finished 10th in MVP voting.

Perhaps just as significantly, Scott won his first of eight Gold Glove awards in 1967. It was only his second year in the majors, and he was quickly building a reputation as one of the best defensive first basemen of his generation. Scott would go on to have a few arguably better seasons in Milwaukee, but the best of his nine seasons with the Red Sox was the Impossible Dream of ’67.

8. Dale Alexander – 1932 WAR AVG OBP SLG OPS+ 3.8 .372 .454 .524 159

Remarkably, this is a partial season. Not only that, it’s a partial season within one of the worst years in Red Sox history.

The 1932 Red Sox were awful. They lost 111 games, still the most in franchise history, and on June 13, they traded right fielder Earl Webb to the Tigers for two players. It was a steal for the Red Sox because of Roy Johnson’s four seasons and Alexander’s one.

Replacing the underwhelming duo of Al Van Camp and Johnny Watwood at first base, Alexander had 15 hits in his first nine games with the Red Sox, then he went on to hit at least .371 in each of the final three months of the season. He’d arrived with a .250 batting average but wound up leading the American League in hitting at .367, the first Red Sox player to do so. The Society for American Baseball Research notes that his limited playing time – only 392 at-bats – would not have qualified for the batting title under today’s standards, and it was actually Foxx who finished second. He otherwise would have won the Triple Crown.

For Alexander, though, it was a crowning achievement. Add 55 walks against 19 strikeouts, and his on- base percentage was similarly robust, and he finished 11th in MVP voting. The next season, though, would be his last in the majors. It was his first year hitting below .300, and SABR notes that a botched medical treatment badly damaged his leg: “He was so badly burned that there was worry he might lose the leg. Fortunately, amputation was never necessary.”

9. Jake Stahl – 1909 WAR AVG OBP SLG OPS+ 3.4 .294 .377 .434 153

An interesting player in Red Sox history because he was with them briefly in 1903, the year they won their first title as the Americans, then he returned to the organization in time to play a role in their 1912 championship.

In between, he led the league in strikeouts three times and led in home runs once. That was in 1910, when he homered just 10 times. Two of his teammates, Duffy Lewis (eight homers) and Tris Speaker (seven), also ranked top four in home runs that season. What a time.

That 1910 season actually generated a slightly higher WAR, but we’ll single out his 1909 season because of his 153 OPS+, which would have been fourth-best in the American League last season. If the league calculated such a thing back then, Stahl’s regular OPS would have ranked fourth in the league, ahead of Speaker, Nap Lajoie and Home Run Baker. He was ninth in batting average, sixth in slugging percentage and third in home runs (with six). An impressive year from a very different time.

10. Mike Napoli – 2013 WAR AVG OBP SLG OPS+ 3.7 .259 .360 .482 128

There’s a strong case for George Burns in this spot. He finished 10th in MVP voting in 1923, and he had a higher WAR (but a lower OPS+) than Napoli in 2013, but there are some intangible elements to consider. Most notably: Can you imagine that 2013 championship season without Napoli?

One of the offseason stopgaps signed by second-year general manager Ben Cherington, Napoli had the second-highest OPS on the team behind only David Ortiz. He was also second in home runs and RBIs as he adjusted to his first full season as a first baseman (he’d caught 72 games the year before).

As one of the bearded leaders on a team of overachievers, Napoli makes our list.

Chris Sale was ‘chasing a ghost for 7 months.’ Now he’s ready to attack rehab

Jen McCaffrey

Just over a week ago, Chris Sale had Tommy John surgery that will keep him sidelined for the better part of the next year or more.

But for all the uncertainty surrounding the surgery and whether Sale should have had it sooner, the 31-year- old left-hander seems at peace with the decision and the long recovery that lies ahead.

“It’s kind of funny to say this, but I’m actually really happy with where I’m at right now,” Sale said on Tuesday in a conference call. “I’ve been chasing a ghost for seven months right now. To have a definitive answer, to have a finish line … I’ve said to a few people, everyone is like, ‘This sucks, sorry to hear about the news.’ For me, this is the first hard answer I’ve had in a long time and at the end of the day I know what I’m getting. I know what’s at the end of this road.”

The process will be slow and tedious, but in Sale’s mind, at least he has a plan. He knows how to work hard. And he has several teammates to help him understand the process, including Brandon Workman and Nathan Eovaldi, the latter of whom has had the surgery twice.

“I can do this with 100 percent of my focus. Much like pitching, I can make this competitive,” he said. “I’ve spent a lot of time talking with Nate, and he’s told me, ‘Don’t look at this as a year. Look at this as two weeks.’ In two weeks, you get your cast off, and then two weeks from then you’re going to start doing range of motion, and then two weeks from then … set little goals, because this thing can swallow you alive if you look at this as 10 months, a year, 14-15 months. Set little goals so you get little pats on the back along the way. It can get monotonous. Even going through the rehab I did this past offseason, it got kind of to be a grind, but on the flip side of that, I have nothing else going on. I can focus 100 percent of my time and effort on this to come back as good as I can.”

That, Sale said, is the least he can do. He signed a five-year, $145 million extension just before the 2019 season, and year one of that deal is already lost.

“I owe that to the team, to my teammates, and to the fans. I’m sitting out a year, and the team put their faith in me to pitch at the highest level for five more years, and I’m, at best, only going to give them four. I take a lot of pride in what I do, and I don’t take it lightly. I have a chip on my shoulder – and I guess, I have a chip in my elbow, too – and I’ve got to find a way to get back to who I am and what I can do as best as possible.”

Part of Sale’s greatness stems from his accountability and the standard to which he holds himself. So if he approaches the rehab process anything like he approaches his starts, he might be able to return much sooner than the average 17-month timetable for pitchers his age.

Meanwhile, there’s some evidence to suggest pitchers of Sale’s elite caliber, who’ve had the surgery after the age of 30, return to similar form. Tim Hudson and John Smoltz are two examples Sale can look toward as post-surgery success stories.

“The one thing I’ve heard more than anything is the rehab process,” he said. “If you dedicate your time and effort into rehabbing this the right way, not skipping any steps and doing things the right way, you’re going to be fine, if not better than before. So on that end of it, I have zero question in my ability to work this, in my work ethic. I have even more confidence in the people I’m surrounded by.”

Sale is scheduled to get his cast off on Thursday and begin range of motion exercises from his home in Naples, Fla., not far from the team’s spring complex in Fort Myers. While JetBlue Park is still closed, Sale is hopeful he can eventually return once the restrictions imposed due to the pandemic are relaxed.

In the meantime, Sale has been spending his time at home with his family, like most of the country. His three sons, aged 9, 3 and 4 months, have kept him busy and the lefty joked he’s been able to develop a mean right-handed cutter with a Wiffle Ball, the kind that would make Mariano Rivera envious. He’s also working on throwing right-handed with a junior football, noting he’s got a good spiral for about 20 yards.

Sale knows there are those who criticize him for not getting surgery last August when he was first sidelined with elbow inflammation, but he wanted to exhaust every other option. At the time, it was Tommy John specialist Dr. James Andrews who prescribed a shot and rest rather than surgery.

“Hindsight is 20/20,” Sale said. “I sleep easier knowing we did everything we could. Some people call it wasting time, and hey, it is.

“I didn’t want to jump the gun and say, ‘OK let’s get the surgery just because it’s available.’ I wanted to make sure it was something that needed to be done and that’s where we got to.”

The Red Sox initially announced Sale would need the surgery on March 19. It was performed by Dr. Neal ElAttrache in Los Angeles, March 30. Sale said the delay stemmed from the issues surrounding performing the surgery during the pandemic, something for which he and the team have received criticism. Sale noted they took several precautions to ensure they wouldn’t be depleting resources needed for patients suffering from COVID-19.

“That was a big part of it,” he said. “I guess that’s why I’m talking to you guys now instead of two weeks ago or 10 days ago or whatever it was. There were a lot of things that we had to do to make sure that this was right. Dr. ElAttrache and his staff were on a daily conference call with people making sure that what we were doing would have zero effect on anybody else dealing with this virus.

“Because at the end of the day, a virus is much more important than fixing my bum elbow.”

Sale said he was tested for the virus in California and it came back negative.

For a pitcher like Sale whose career has revolved around having precise control, the unknowns of the next rehab steps that begin later this week will be uncomfortable. Nevertheless, he’s still confident his work ethic will get him to the other side.

“That’s kind of making the light at the end of the tunnel a little bit brighter,” he said. “If you’re telling me the only thing I have to do is work hard at rehabbing this elbow, we’re in. There’s no more discussion. I have a lot of confidence going forward to know that my elbow is going to be better than it was before.

“Hopefully I get 10 more great years out of it.”

* The New York Post

Red Sox’s Chris Sale wonders if he unknowingly had coronavirus

Zach Braziller

Chris Sale didn’t start spring training with his teammates. A mild case of pneumonia held him back.

Now, he’s wondering if that illness could be the novel coronavirus that has become a global pandemic.

“If I had it, somebody in my family and a lot of people at the park would have been infected,” the injured Red Sox ace told reporters during a conference call. “It has definitely crossed my mind.”

Sale did test negative for influenza in February, before testing for coronavirus became widespread. He hopes that an antibody test, whenever one comes available, will reveal if he had coronavirus.

Multiple Red Sox minor leaguers were quarantined due to coronavirus concerns at the beginning of spring training. And one minor-league player in their system did test positive near the end of last month. Two Yankees minor leaguers have also tested positive for coronavirus.

Whether or not there is a baseball season, he won’t be a part of it. The hard-throwing southpaw recently underwent Tommy John Surgery that ended his year. On Thursday he can began rehabbing after getting his cast off.

“If you’re telling me the only thing I have to do is work hard at rehabbing this elbow, we’re in,” Sale said. “There’s no more discussion.”

* Associated Press

Red Sox ace Sale confident he'll be strong after Tommy John

BOSTON (AP) — Red Sox left-hander Chris Sale says he has no regrets about the timing of his recent Tommy John surgery and is confident he can return as a stronger pitcher following his yearlong rehab.

Sale had the procedure on his left elbow on March 30, getting his ulnar collateral ligament replaced by Dr. Neal ElAttrache in Los Angeles. The Red Sox said the surgery was a success.

Sale is expected to miss 14-15 months, which would put him on track to return in the middle of the 2021 season.

The Boston ace said having observed and interacted with several teammates and friends who had the surgery helped put his mind at ease about the road he has ahead of him to get back on the mound.

“That’s kind of making the light at the tunnel a little bit brighter,” he said during a conference call on Tuesday. “If you’re telling me all I have to do is work really hard rehabbing this elbow, we’re in. There’s no more discussion. So I have a lot of confidence going forward to know that my elbow is gonna be better than it was before. Hopefully I’m get 10 more great years out of it.”

Sale plans to rehab at Boston's spring training facility in Fort Myers, Florida, when it reopens. But in the meantime he said he is equipped to begin the process at home while coronavirus social distancing restrictions remain in place.

The 31-year-old missed the start of spring training with an illness the team described as a flu that it said turned into pneumonia. The Red Sox then revealed he had a flexor strain near the elbow, but the team hoped he would avoid ligament replacement surgery.

Sale said he first noticed an issue after throwing a batting practice session in Fort Myers. He said he was feeling fine during the workout, getting up to 92 mph with his fastball. But hours later, he started feeling nervous after feeling tightness in his arm and forearm. The next day he informed the team training staff and his doctors, who scheduled an MRI.

The Tommy John operation ultimately took place 11 days after doctors recommended it due to scheduling difficulty brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.

“At the end of the day this virus is more important than fixing my bum elbow,” Sale said. “That was the big thing for us. That this was the right thing to do at the right time and would not affect anybody that was suffering.”

A seven-time All-Star, Sale is 109-73 in 10 major league seasons and entering the second season of a $160 million, six-year contract.

But after helping the Red Sox win the 2018 World Series, he went 6-11 with a 4.40 ERA in 25 starts last year. It marked his fewest wins and starts, highest ERA, and the first time he failed to finish among the top six in Cy Young Award voting in any full season as a starter.

“There’s never a good time for this to happen. But if there ever was, this is probably about as good as you can get with everything going on with the season,” Sale said. “It makes me not feel I guess as bad missing starts and having other people pick up my slack.”

He said he has no regrets about not getting the procedure done in the fall after he spent time on the injured list during the season with elbow inflammation.

“I appreciate the process and I wouldn’t have been 100 percent go as I was this past time. Because we turned over every stone. We did every possible thing we could have to prevent this,” Sale said.

He said he’s talked a lot with Red Sox pitcher Nathan Eovaldi for advice in recent weeks. Eovaldi has had Tommy John twice, first in high school and again in 2016 when he was with the New York Yankees. Eovaldi told Sale to set little goals to avoid letting the rehab feel so daunting.

Sale said it’s helped put him to get into a positive mindset.

“It’s kind of funny to say this, but I’m actually really happy with where I’m at right now. I’ve been chasing a ghost for seven months now,” he said. “For me this is a first hard answer I’ve had in a long time. At and the end of the day I know what I’m getting. I know the end of the road.”