Sale: ‘I know who we are ... and we’ll be there’

BOSTON -- Whether examining himself or his team, Red Sox ace Chris Sale is in equal parts disbelief at the moment.

Who could have predicted that Sale would be 0-5 with a 6.30 ERA in his first six starts of the season after Sunday’s 5-2 loss to the impressive Tampa Bay Rays at Fenway Park?

And who could have predicted the Red Sox -- the team that won the World Series on the back of 108 wins last year -- could be 11-17 and 7 1/2 games behind the Rays on April 28?

Yet for all that disbelief, Sale also strongly believes that things can and will turn dramatically in the other direction for both himself and his team. Sale simply refuses to believe that everything that was so good such a short time ago can suddenly go bad.

“I think if you take a look around this room, you see obviously the names on the stickers and numbers on the back,” said Sale. “We’ve got the guys to do it. It’s basically the same team that won a World Series. We’re not losing confidence. We're not taking back from the effort. We’re not hanging our heads. We’re not pointing fingers. That’s not who we are. That’s not how we got where we are.”

Though the results are markedly different, Sale sees no change in the process that led to such great results in 2018.

“We’re doing the same things, just not getting the same results,” said Sale. “That’s hard from the other side of it, but at the end of the day, there’s only so much you can do and we’re doing it. You’ll see our guys out there taking early BP. You’ll see our guys taking ground balls, fly balls. Pitchers throwing bullpens. We’re doing our thing. We’re doing what we need to do to succeed.”

At some point soon, however, the process needs to translate into results. And why it hasn’t so far is hard to put a finger on. At the beginning of the season, it was the rotation. Then it was the offense. At times, the defense has had untimely breakdowns, such as the error by third baseman Rafael Devers in the second inning of Sunday’s loss that led to two unearned runs off Sale.

“I mean, it’s obvious, we haven’t been consistent,” said Red Sox manager Alex Cora. “If we pitch, we don’t hit, if we don’t hit -- you know the phrase, whatever -- one thing is going, the other one is not. Defensively we show flashes, then we don’t. We haven’t been able to put everything together.”

“It’s just, the success isn’t there. I’ve got every single person in this clubhouse’s back,” said Sale. “I know what we can do. I know who we have. I know what we’re capable of. Just gotta stay on it. We’ve got to keep striking the iron. Got to keep swinging the bats, throwing the ball, and just know that on the other side of this there’s going to be some green grass.”

Sale is convinced the Red Sox will find a way to regain their form.

“It isn’t easy to swallow now, but hey, we’ll be there,” Sale said. “I know who we are, I know what we’ve got, and we’ll be there.”

As for Sale, he made incremental progress for the second straight start. He pitched a season-high seven innings and just two of the four runs he allowed were earned. Sale walked three and struck out eight, seeming to find himself over his final few innings. He said that pitching coach Dana LeVangie helped him spot something early in the game that led to his success after.

“Just kind of my takeaway. Hand out of my glove,” Sale said. “Dana came up to me after the third or fourth inning and was telling me some things with my delivery, just getting some things a little bit more crisp, getting things more in line. After that, it was obvious. Things were getting a little bit better, I was able to get my fastball extension and I think my breaking ball had a little bit more depth on it.”

An obvious missing ingredient for Sale remains velocity. Though Sale’s four-seamer averaged just 91.6 mph on Sunday, he got some results, generating six swinging strikes of the 36 he threw. When the Rays put his four-seamer in play, they were 1-for-8.

“I’ve still got to put my team in a better position early on,” said Sale. “First inning, two-run homer, that’s a tough spot to put my guys in. Still building. I feel like a broken record saying the same things over and over but at the end of the day, I need to be a little bit better.”

There’s nothing Sale can do about what has already happened, and he won’t sugarcoat it either.

“I’m sitting here like a broken record,” Sale said. “What am I, six starts in? ... I don’t want to sit here and say the same things over and over, but hopefully sooner rather than later [it will change], that’s for damn sure.

“Like I said, this is a results-oriented game. No one cares about the hard work. No one cares about the effort. We’ve gotta start winning games."