Wow, what a year it has already been for Chicago White Sox young ace Chris Sale. He struck out 12 St. Louis Cardinals in eight innings last night to tie recent Hall of Fame inductee Pedro Martinez for 8 consecutive games with double digit strikeouts.
Absolutely remarkable. These are the only two pitchers since 1900 to strike out 10 or more hitters in eight consecutive starts, and with the way Sale is going right now, I can see him breaking it in his next start. Since his rocky start in April, the left hander has just been on another level. Even when he got knocked around by the Minnesota Twins the start before, he managed to get through 6 and two third innings, and struck out 10. That was a challenge, and then last night there was some skepticism about whether or not he would be as dominant against the best team in all of baseball, the St. Louis Cardinals. But that didn’t stop him from going out and throwing yet another gem. Outside of one Randal Grichuk solo home run, there was pretty much nothing on the board for the home team in red, as they managed jut 6 hits.
What Chris Sale is doing is something I know I’ve never seen before. He’s a left hander throwing with a funky side-arm like motion, with his fastball buzzing in the upper 90s, and has a slider and a changeup that just don’t seem fair to opposing hitters. His record is at just 6-4 because of the fact that the Chicago White Sox just can’t put together any kind of offense not only during his starts, but on a game to game basis, which is why they are a last place team. His ERA has been lowered to 2.87 and he’s struck out 141 hitters in 103 and a third innings this season. That is absurd.
Do I see a possible Cy Young winner? Maybe, and it’s too early for that since it isn’t even the all star break yet, but it is fun to talk about.
