The man is long, lean, lanky, and left-handed.  He throws hard and makes the best hitters in the world look stupid, sometimes even bruised up a bit (See Below).  He wears hitters down from his high octane arsenal as well as his body language at which he attacks hitters.  He has a deceptive delivery with the mentality of here it is, try and hit it.  This perennial Cy Young candidate has been mowing down American League hitters since he arrived on the scene in 2010.  His current career rates of 10.5 K/9 IP and 5.1 K/BB ratio are astounding.   Plus, he wants no part of having to pitch in the stupid and goofy retro uniforms.  

Like so many other pitchers, he learned to throw his Slider in college when he had the Come to Jesus moment with himself, admitting that his curveball was garbage.  It all took off from there.  the 1st Round Pick in 2010 made his MLB debut that same year after just 11 minor leagues appearances.  Naturally, he was a no brainer for our Team USA starting rotation.  Chris Sale is his name and strikeouts are his game.  Now that we are past that cheesy one liner, let’s take a look at how he uses his all of pitches to set up hitters and put them away with his Dominant Slider.   Allow for the Chris Sale Strikeout sequence to commence.  

 

August 26, 2016 – Seattle Mariners vs Chicago White Sox

King Felix vs  The Condor   In his last season as a Pale Hoser on the Southside, Chris Sale is squaring off in an Ace vs Ace marquee pitching match up.

 

Chris Sale Strikeout Sequence #1

The Victim – Mike Zunino.
Sale makes short work of the right handed hitting catcher.  

Ist Pitch – Change Up 86mph. Called Strike. A get me over to start the at bat.

2nd Pitch – Another Change Up, 87mph. Foul.  The off speed pitch away is weakly yanked foul by Zunino.

3rd Pitch – Fastball Up & In 92mph.  Ball 1.  Good waste pitch after 2 Change Ups away.  Now this expands the plate away even more in Sale’s favor.

4th Pitch – Slider 81. Strike 3 Swinging.   You know the Slider is eventually going to show up, yet not much can be done with it.  Sale throws a crisp Slider that starts off the plate to righty and the breaks down and into the middle of the plate below the zone.  Effortless and efficient.  This was a sign of maturity for Sale as a pitcher, as he didn’t need to air it all out to make his pitch. He released it properly and the rest took care of itself.  

 

Chris Sale Strikeout Sequence #2

The Victim – Guillermo Heredia 
The Outfielder battles only to have his weakness exposed  

1st Pitch – Fastball 92mph Outer Half on the Knees.  Called Strike.

2nd Pitch –  Change Up 87mph Down & Away. Swinging Strike 2.  Heredia was reaching and swinging.  Fastball Away, Change Up Away is tough to differentiate against.

3rd Pitch – Change Up 87mph Down & Away again. Ball 1.  More off the plate.  Heredia was reaching again for it, but was able to check his swing.  Expanding the plate with 2 strikes.

4th Pitch – Fastball Up & In 97mph. Ball 2.  Even on this high and tight pitch, Heredia was reaching out over the plate.  Now Sale can expand the zone even more.

5th Pitch – Fastball Up & Over the Plate 97mph. Fouled Off.

6th Pitch – Backdoor Slider 78mph Called Strike 3.   Heredia with his open stance was diving out over the plate again.  However, after 2 Straight 97mph Fastballs elevated and/or inside, Guellerimo has not seen the Slider yet. He saw change ups away at 87.  From one pitch to the next, a 19mph differential, opposite sides of the plate, drastically different eye levels.  Plain and simple, the at bat was mainly hard in, soft away.  Gets hitters out at every level.

Chris Sale Strikeout Sequence #3

The Victim – Robinson Cano
This is an epic battle between 2 of the best at their respected crafts.
Cano stays on left-handed pitchers very well, however… 

 

1st Pitch – Fastball missed down 94mph.  Ball 1.

2nd Pitch – Slider sweeps across the plate 81mph. Ball 2.  No idea where the umpire saw this pitch.  It was there.  Sale is noticeably not happy with the call.

3rd Pitch – Fastball Low & Away 96mph.  Foul. Cano swings late and feebly, pulls the pitch foul.

4th Pitch – Slider Away 82mph. Swinging Strike. Half way through his swing, Cano realizes that there is nothing that he can do with the Slider.  He waves through the rest of his swing ad does a full body pirouette on his front leg as he prepares for 2 strike mode.

5th Pitch – Slider Away 83mph.  Foul.  As Cano is clearly in protect mode, he has a defensive swing and just gets a piece of the Slider to stay alive.

6th Pitch – Fastball Up & In 95mph. Foul.  As tight as this pitch is, Cano still swings and gets a piece of it before it would tune him up pretty good.

7th Pitch – Fastball Up & Over the Plate 97mph. Foul. Very late swing fouled the other away sharply.

8th Pitch – Slider Away 80mph.  Strike 3 Swinging.  So yes, the Slider was up in the zone.  However, it did break entirely across and out of the strike zone.  After seeing 95 that almost killed him, then being very late on an elevated fastballball at 97, that was enough for Cano to wave his bat through another Slider to end the inning.  All the $240 Million man could do is leave his helmet and batting gloves at home plate for the bat boy to clean up as he heads out to play defense thinking about the adjustment that he needs to make for the next at bat.  

 

In Closing

Sale was the hard luck loser in this game as the White Sox could only muster a solo homer from Todd Frazier off of Felix Hernandez.  Sale went the distance allowing 3 ER on 5 hits while Striking Out 14 and Walking a big ole’ fat 0.  Fast forward to 2017, Chris Sale now has added some color to his sox and is a front runner for the AL Cy Young.  We are watching something special with what this lefty brings to the mound every 5 days.  We will focus on his Cy Young competition, Corey Kluber, in a future post.  It’s been a heck of a showing from both of these 2 hurlers.

Please allow yourself to enjoy the light hearted moments that Chris Sale’s Dominance brings to the great game of baseball.  Have a good laugh at the expense of hitters’ shins, knees, wrists and %&@^$!

Keep Dominating!!!

Chris Sale Strikeout sequence

 

 

Chis Sale Strikeout Sequence