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Alex Speier | On baseball

Chris Sale brutal in first-half assessment: ‘Absolutely embarrassing’

Chris Sale walks off the mound after giving up a two-run home run to Toronto’s Danny Jansen in the fourth inning of Wednesday night’s 6-3 loss to the host Blue Jays.Fred Thornhill/The Canadian Press via AP/The Canadian Press via AP

TORONTO — It ended as it began, a reverberating thud inside a stadium with a retractable roof against an unimpressive lineup expected to present little resistance.

Chris Sale’s final outing of the first half of the 2019 season — if not the worst half-season of his career, then close enough — offered symmetry to the season opener in Seattle. In both outings, Sale allowed three homers and walked off the mound shaking his head while trying to make sense of the many questions raised by his performance.

Sale’s five-run, three-homer, nine-hit yield over 5⅔ innings in a 6-3 Red Sox loss to the Blue Jays on Wednesday concluded the pitcher’s pre-All-Star break performance. After starting the last three Midsummer Classics for the American League, Sale has an impending vacation over the break after going 3-8 with a 4.04 ERA. The Red Sox are 6-12 in his 18 starts — a worse record than that produced in front of the revolving cast of fifth starters.

Characteristically, Sale pulled no punches in a withering postgame assessment.

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“I’m supposed to be a big part of this team and a big part of this pitching staff,” said Sale. “I know who I am and who I’m supposed to be for this team, and I haven’t even been anything close. What am I, 3-8? That’s absolutely embarrassing. That’s not what I need to be and that’s not who I need to be for this team. On a team like this, they need me to be better and I haven’t been there for them. I’m standing before you as frustrated as I’ve ever been, just to be honest.”

There were specifics related to Sale’s struggles on Wednesday. One start after the White Sox tagged Sale for five runs over six innings by attacking the pitcher’s slider, the Blue Jays did the opposite, hunting fastballs and mashing them. All three of Toronto’s homers and six of their nine hits came on fastballs, yet the Red Sox kept throwing them — particularly to Sale’s glove side, rather than the fastball to the pitcher’s arm side that not only explodes up and away but also establishes his changeup as a weapon.

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Yet it hasn’t just been one missing piece to Sale’s first half. It’s been a succession of issues — games in which his slider doesn’t show up, or when his fastball velocity is down, or when he limits himself to attacking one side of the plate, or when he’s lacked extension and finish to his pitches, or when he’s thrown well and weak contact has been bunched in a way to produce just enough runs to hang another loss on the pitcher and the Sox thanks to the pitiful run support the team has given him.

“I’m not locating fastballs, my changeup is terrible, breaking ball is hit or miss. I just haven’t been myself for a while,” said Sale. “I just haven’t been good.”

Certainly, while Sale judges his performance through the lens of how his team has fared when he’s on the mound (not well, as evidenced by that 6-12 record), there’s been plenty to suggest that he has the ability to dominate. He has struck out 12.9 batters per nine innings, and at times, each of his pitches has been unhittable.

Yet those times have been inconsistent, creating the big, hovering, $145 million question: Is Chris Sale healthy?

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It’s hard not to wonder given that his shoulder was an issue over the final months of 2018, his average fastball velocity entering Wednesday was 92.9 mph in 2019 – down from 94.8 mph in 2018 – and he hasn’t shown consistent command.

Moreover, the Sox’ efforts to give him extra rest both in his final start before the break (six days) and his first after it – David Price will make the start on the Sunday before the break, allowing Sale to get at least eight days off before his first start after the break – offers further cause for a raised eyebrow.

So: healthy?

“Yeah,” said Sale. “That’s kind of the worst part about it. There’s nothing to look back on other than being bad.”

Data supports the assertion of health. The spin rate on his four-seamer (a potential injury indicator) has been higher this year than in the past two seasons with the Sox, his slider break has been normal, his extension has been normal, and the fact that he’s been topping out at 97 mph in his last two outings suggests gas in the tank.

“If Chris Sale wasn’t healthy then I would be really concerned about this,” said pitching coach Dana LeVangie. “But he’s healthy and zero complaints.”

Zero complaints, that is, about his health. But for the Red Sox, the inability to win with their best pitcher on the mound has become a devastating issue. The team is now 2 ½ games behind Cleveland for the second wild card spot – a deficit that would not exist if the team had gone, say, 9-9 with Sale on the mound.

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To this point, his starts have been a shockingly unexpected part of a disappointing team. For the Red Sox to emerge after the break from their malaise, they will need to start winning with their most dominant pitcher on the mound.

“He’s our ace. He’s our No. 1 and when he pitched well, we didn’t hit, when we hit, he didn’t pitch well. It was a combination of both. We’re a team, we’re not going to point fingers at him or the offense or whatever, I just think collectively whenever he pitched in the first part of the season we weren’t good,” said Cora. “Right now we’re not getting the results but I know this guy is a horse, he’s one of the best pitchers in the big leagues. … Hopefully the break is going to help him out, he’ll come back over the weekend against LA and hopefully we get the Chris Sale we’re accustomed to.”


Alex Speier can be reached at alex.speier@globe.com. Follow him on twitter at @alexspeier.