Chris Sale hurt; not horrifically, but not insignificantly
/Mid-day Saturday, the White Sox and Chris Sale made the newest entry into the mysterious off-season home injury Hall of Fame.
Per the team website:
“White Sox pitcher Chris Sale suffered an avulsion fracture on the lateral side of his right foot in an accident at his home yesterday, and the left-hander is expected to be sidelined three weeks before resuming baseball activities.
Sale, 25, underwent x-rays this morning at Banner Estrella Hospital in Glendale. He will undergo further tests once the swelling in his foot has subsided. At that point, his status for Opening Day will be better determined.”
They're engraving the plaque for this one to go up next to "Carlos Boozer tripped over a bag" and "Jeff Keppinger fell down the stairs."
In terms of 'Chris Sale injury possibilities,' this is exceedingly mild, given that it doesn't involve his throwing arm in any way, doesn't come during the season, and the missed playing time is purely theoretical at this point. As the beat writers have been gamely pointing out, this three-week absence comes in the middle of his process for building up arm strength for the season, and will leave him with just over two weeks to prepare. Sale was the sure-fire Opening Day starter before this, and now could miss a turn, or even be the source of some crafty rejiggering of the whole rotation.
Let April 12 be from here on out referred to as "The Brad Penny Deadline."
The injury announcement is not without its weirdness, since Sale refused to give anything but bizarre mythology on how he suffered an injury reportedly acquired while "unloading something off a truck."
Well, that is, uh, his choice. I wish there was no explanation at all at this point, just so my dream of 'Sale's plan of secretly getting bachata lessons so as to surprise his wife goes awry' could live on. Stonefaced "no comment" always leads to less follow-up questions than acting really bizarre, just saying!
The overall value of Sale missing what seems to be--at this point of projection--a single start, is fairly minimal. Injuries are bad, though, and not just for their projected cost, but for the possibility of complications and setbacks that they always offer. Sale is an elite performer in his prime, not post-injury and out of shape Kendrys Morales, but we've seen pretty recently the perils of missing preparation time. A betting man wouldn't bank on anything but Sale having another fabulous year, but this is the seed of doubt. It exists now, even if much like your incompetently planted tulips, it will probably never bloom.
Meanwhile, the Jose Quintana erasure persists unabated.
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