Chris Sale sets season high in strikeouts in Braves loss

CHICAGO — There was no activity in the Braves’ bullpen in the top of the seventh inning on Thursday, despite Chris Sale’s pitch count sitting at 97. The veteran lefty was headed back out for the seventh.

Sale saved his best for last, throwing a 1-2-3 inning on just eight pitches. It was part of his strong afternoon in the Braves’ 1-0 loss to the White Sox at Guaranteed Rate Field, in the makeup game of the Braves and White Sox April 3 postponement.

Sale allowed just one run on four hits in his seven innings. He tallied a season-high 11 strikeouts and issued just one walk.

“He’s amazing when he knows it’s his last inning, how he gets it done,” Braves manager Brian Snitker said. “I’ve noticed that he’ll get through that inning, empty the tank and make it happen. He’s really good at that.”

Sale threw 21 pitches in the first inning, when he surrendered the game’s only run — a solo homer that Luis Robert Jr. snuck inside the left-field foul pole. It came on a first-pitch slider located down and inside, and Robert hit it a Statcast-projected 352 feet.

From then on, Sale was in total control. He allowed just two singles, one double and one walk over his final six innings. That included a leadoff single by Robert in the fourth, which Sale erased by getting Eloy Jiménez to ground into a 4-6-3 double play.

“He was really good,” Snitker said of Sale. “He struggled a little bit through the first inning, and then he got locked in and was really, really good.”

Sale retired the final seven batters he faced, including Jiménez, Paul DeJong and Corey Julks in a 1-2-3 seventh. He attributed his ability to buckle down at the end of starts, as Snitker referenced, to his experience pitching in relief.

Sale made 59 appearances in his first two seasons in the Majors, in 2010 and ‘11, all out of the White Sox bullpen.

“Knowing when your pitch count gets to a certain spot, you’ve got no reason to hold anything back,” Sale said. “I know guys are playing hard behind me. I play once a week. So whenever I get the chance, I’ve got to put it all out there.”

Thursday marked Sale’s third start this season with 10 or more strikeouts (also May 8 vs. Boston and June 7 vs. Washington). He has a 2.79 ERA and a 0.92 WHIP in 15 starts, with 118 strikeouts compared to just 17 walks in 93 2/3 innings.

After making just 31 starts from 2021-23 with the Red Sox while missing time due to injuries, you can’t overlook health as a big factor behind Sale’s consistency this season.

“I think that’s the No. 1 thing,” Snitker said pregame. “A normal offseason for guys when they’re coming back off injuries is something that we don’t put enough stock in, and it’s really good for them. I know he loves being healthy, because this guy loves to play baseball.

“I’ve just been so impressed with how he loves everything about it. He loves the clubhouse. He loves the work. He loves the camaraderie with his teammates, throwing sides, the whole thing, and he really loves to compete. So I’ve been nothing but impressed with this guy ever since we got him.”

Sale exited with the Braves down 1-0, but Atlanta could not break through against Chicago, which used five relievers in a bullpen game. The Braves recorded three hits and drew five walks and went 0-for-5 with runners in scoring position and left seven runners on base.

Marcell Ozuna just missed a go-ahead three-run homer in the eighth, on a 343-foot flyout that Tommy Pham hauled in just ahead of the right-field wall.

“There wasn’t much to show for them, really,” Snitker said of Atlanta’s at-bats. “We just couldn’t hit.”

The Braves are 1-3 since winning their three-game series against the Yankees in the Bronx last weekend. They’ve had a trying schedule in recent days, with Wednesday’s doubleheader in St. Louis leading into Thursday’s pitstop in Chicago.

As frustrating as the past few days may have been, Atlanta knows it can’t get too high or too low.

“We’ve just got to keep plugging away, keep doing our thing,” Sale said. “It’s not early anymore, by any means, but we still know what we have to do. We’ve just got to keep playing good baseball and not get too down when it’s not good and not get too up when it is.”