DETROIT — Chris Sale walked the first two Detroit Tigers he faced on Thursday afternoon on eight pitches, none that came close to the plate. It was such an unnerving sight that the entire infield gathered on the mound before pitching coach Dave Bush joined them.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever thrown eight straight balls in my life,” Sale said. “That was definitely interesting.”
That’s one word for it. Alarming is another.
Bush didn’t arrive with any particular adjustment he wanted his pitcher to make. It was more providing an opportunity for Sale to catch his breath and reset.
“You’re in a big-league game, man. The game’s going fast, you’ve got to collect yourself and find a way to get out of it,” Sale said. “A couple of inspiring words and there we were.”
In the pitch-timer era, pitchers can’t slow the game down like they once could, but a well-timed visit from the pitching coach can serve the same purpose.
“In those moments, a pitcher can get overwhelmed,” Bush said. “Start over and throw strike one and work your way through that situation one pitch at a time.
“You can’t try to get a triple play on the next pitch. You need strike one.”
Sale threw strike one to Riley Greene, a fastball that just nicked the inside corner. He struck out Greene and the two batters who followed. That led to five solid innings in a game the Sox won, 6-3.
Sale allowed three runs on four hits and struck out seven. After his initial wildness, he walked only one other batter, and kept his team in the game until Adam Duvall broke it open with a three-run homer in the sixth inning.
Career regular-season victory No. 115 was more about character than how well he commanded his pitches. There were a few laughs along the way, too.
“Bold strategy,” manager Alex Cora said when Sale returned to the dugout after the first inning, quoting a line from the movie “Dodgeball.”
That eased some of the tension.
“That’s what makes AC great. That’s why we love him,” said Sale, who is no average Joe. “He obviously knows this game about as good as anybody I’ve ever met. But also knows how to handle people and personalities and knows what to say and when to say it sometimes.”
It won’t be fair to judge Sale for another month or two. He came into the season having pitched only 48⅓ innings the previous three years because of an assortment of injuries. He’s still building arm strength and settling into the five-day routine of a starting pitcher.
“That’s what I told him after the game,” Bush said. “You’re going to get there but you’re not going to get there in one start.
“It’s going to take some time and continuing to make progress, knowing that each time he goes out there, it’ll be better than it was the last time and that’ll get him to where he wants to get to.”
On a 47-degree day, Sale averaged a modest 91.5 miles per hour with his sinker, but was able to elevate to 95 in the second inning. He also retired seven of the final eight batters he faced, the exception on an error by shortstop Kiké Hernández.
Considering Sale allowed seven runs over three innings in his first start, it was progress.
“Step-by-step,” Cora said. “Overall a good one. He finished strong. A step in the right direction.”
Sale will next pitch Wednesday against the Rays at Tropicana Field, where he has a 1.96 earned run average in 13 career regular-season games.
“I’ve got a lot of work to do, but I’m in a really good spot because of the people I have around me. I have a lot of confidence going forward,” Sale said.
Thursday was Detroit’s home opener, and the teams are off on Friday. The Sox took advantage of the break by having a gathering at the team hotel after the game.
“It’s huge, man,” Cora said. “We’ll hang out as a group. This is the first time we’ll be together on the road.”
Thanks to Sale’s perseverance, the Sox had a victory to celebrate.
“It’s all a work in progress,” he said.
Peter Abraham can be reached at peter.abraham@globe.com. Follow him on Bluesky at peteabeglobe.bsky.social.