What were the extent of Chris Sale’s season-ending injuries?
The Boston Red Sox have confirmed that seven time All-Star pitcher Chris Sale will not return after undergoing surgery following a freak bicycle accident
Chris Sale can’t seem to catch a break. The seven-time Boston Red Sox All-Star pitcher has suffered a string of injuries since 2019 that saw him miss the back end of that season and all of 2020 and the front end of 2021. He managed to throw 42.2 innings last season for a respectable 3.16 ERA and a 1.34 WHIP.
In the off-season, he picked up a right rib stress fracture which saw him miss the first half of the season. When he finally returned just prior to the All-Star break, he threw just 5.2 innings before suffering a fractured left pinky finger on a come-backer against the Yankees that saw him have to have surgery.
Expecting to return in September, he has now suffered a further accident that will see him out for the remainder of the season. This injury, though, was not sustained on the baseball diamond, but on a bicycle, leaving him with a fractured wrist that required surgery.
Boston’s president of baseball operations, Chaim Bloom, said, “You couldn’t make this up, right? We need to dispatch some people to go find whoever has the Chris Sale voodoo doll and recover it.”
Bloom, speaking to reporters via a Zoom call, confirmed the details of the accident, which are that on Saturday, Sale returned home from a throwing session that he had done at Boston College earlier in the day, decided to bike into town to pick up lunch, hit something while riding down a hill which caused him to fly off the bike, fracturing his wrist as a result.
Signing a five-year, $145 million deal in 2019, Sale still has two years left to run on that deal, putting the Red Sox on the hook for around $55 million. For their part, the Sox have not had much better luck than their pitcher, seeing their playoff hopes dwindle as they drop to 17 games back in the AL East and staring down the barrel of a last-place finish.
With their pitcher now focusing on next season, the team themselves are in much the same basket, counting 2022 as a painful write-off.
Sale is expected to be ready to begin spring training in 2023, let’s hope the rest of the Boston Red Sox are as well.