On Sunday, Chris Sale‘s second start of the season was over quickly.
Aaron Hicks, an outfielder for the Yankees, hit a line drive at Sale, who was just facing his sixth batter of the game. The ball hit Sale’s pitching hand and went all the way into shallow right field. Sale fell to the ground and grimaced for a moment before throwing his hurt hand around and running straight into the dugout.
Sale briefly put his hurt hand up in the air, which let cameras see that his pitching hand’s pinky looked like it was out of place. Later on Sunday, the Red Sox said that Sale broke his “left fifth finger,” which is also called the “pinky finger.” No time frame was given for his injury.
In the fourth inning, Sale returned to the Red Sox’s dugout. He had tape on his left hand. After Sunday’s 13-2 loss, Red Sox manager Alex Cora told reporters that he would see a hand specialist on Monday or Tuesday. Cora didn’t say that Sale wouldn’t come back at some point this season.
Aaron Hicks smokes a line drive off Chris Sale's pinky to score another run. Sale appears to have broken his finger and he exits the game pic.twitter.com/FNDsWNVzBc
— Talkin' Yanks (@TalkinYanks) July 17, 2022
Baseball Savant says that Hicks’ line drive left the bat at 106.7 mph. Gleyber Torres was able to score from second base when the ball went into right field, giving the Yankees a 3-0 lead.
Sale said that the pain didn’t hit him right away.
“No pain. Zero pain. Sale said about the time after the play, “Anger, frustration, and rage first.” “I fell to the floor. I didn’t even think about how my finger was broken. I hit the ground, looked down, and saw my finger under my ring finger. I thought, “Oh well, there goes more time.” The first thing that came to my mind was that.”
Sale has been hurt a lot over the past few seasons. Since August 2019, he has only made 11 regular-season starts. After Tommy John surgery, he missed all of 2020 and most of 2021. Sale broke his right rib cage in February, which kept him out of the game until this past Tuesday. In his first game of the 2022 season, he shut out the Rays for five innings.
Sale was upset that another injury had taken away his ability to play baseball.
“I’ve said it all along. I just want to do my job. Sale said, “All I want to do is play baseball.” “So many things have made me lose that. It’s bad. This almost hurts more than the other ones because it came as a surprise. I felt good.”
But Sale tried to keep things in perspective as he faced another long time off the field.
“I know two things for sure right now. I have a lot of people who care about me and want me to do well rooting for me. And right now, somewhere, someone is having a worse day than I am. “That is true,” Sale said.
Sale added, “I’m who I am, and missing more time kills me.” “But I need something to hold on to and look back on, and that’s it. The world is going through really, really hard times right now, and a broken finger isn’t even the worst of it.”
Before he got hurt by a freak accident, Sale’s second start of the season wasn’t as good as his first. To start the game, DJ LeMahieu hit a double, and Sale hit Aaron Judge with a pitch in the next at-bat. LeMahieu scored after Rafael Devers made a mistake, and Judge scored before Aaron Hicks’ turn at bat because Matt Carpenter made a fielder’s choice.
Hirokazu Sawamura took over for Chris Sale, and in the next at-bat, the inning was over.
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