McAdam: Chris Sale is intent on forgetting - his injuries, the Astros' sign-stealing -- as new season dawns

FORT MYERS, Fla. -- Chris Sale isn't one to dwell.

In the mind of the Red Sox' ace lefty, what's done is done. So he sees little value in rehashing his disastrous playoff debut against the Houston Astros in 2017 and wondering if the Astros' illicitly stole signs to beat him in Game 1 of the Division Series.

Nor is Sale interesting in rehashing and re-examining his 2019 season -- the first half of which was marked by inconsistency, while the latter half was derailed by an elbow scare. What's done is done.

And finally, he is philosophical about the combination of the flu and mild pneumonia that has limited him the last two weeks and thrown off his spring training timetable almost before it began.

"What are you gonna do?' shrugged Sale. "You deal with it and you move on. Whatever the next step is, that's what we go with.''

That response came as Sale was asked about his own health. But really, it could have served as his answer to almost every question posed to him over a wide-ranging 30-minute interview with reporters, his first public statements since last August.

He would like to forget most of 2019, when he posted the highest ERA (4.40) and missed most of the final two months with what was later diagnosed as a strained UCL in his left elbow. So as much he could Sunday, Sale focused on the present and the future, while reluctantly touching upon the past.

"I feel better than I have in a long time, actually,'' he said of his body in general and his elbow in particular. "I've never taken that time off before. Since I started baseball, I don't know if I've had that time off. Obviously, it's something you don't want to have to go through. That was miserable -- not throwing, not playing. Being in Florida in August, I've never done that. I've never not traveled with the team. Watching my team play from my couch from my house is just a weird feeling. It's uncharted territory for me.

"But every muscle in my body got a really long break and had time to heal. In the end, I think it will help me out in the long run.''

Many Red Sox fans worried that Sale was on a collision course with a surgeon's scalpel and was bound for Tommy John surgery. But Sale maintained that he was never truly worried.

"I knew I was in good hands, he said. "I had gone to see the best doctor in the world for this. I guess it was a major injury, but no one was ever stressed. I went and saw (Dr.) James Andrews and he just looks at (the elbow) and he was like, 'Yeah, man, you'll be alright. Throw some PRP (platelet-rich plasma) in that thing and I'll see you in a couple of weeks and we'll be good to go.' I was like, 'OK, he's the best of the best. He can do this with his eyes closed.' When he gives you that level of confidence, it makes you feel more confident moving forward.''

The 2020 Red Sox already have a vastly different look. Gone as two of Sale's longtime rotation-mates, David Price and Rick Porcello. Also missing from a year ago: Alex Cora and Mookie Betts.

"It's part of the business,'' said of the turnover. "It's something that in the back of your mind, you're always prepared for. There's nothing you can do about it. You can't really dwell on the past because you have something in front of you to do. We don't have time to worry about the what-ifs or this, that and the other. We've got a job to do and we've got to do it.''

Sale tries to find positives among the negatives and, sure enough, there was a silver lining or two from missing as much time as he did: more time to study and begin making the necessary adjustments.

"As bad as I was last year, I learned a lot,'' he said. "I think that's going to help me going forward. Last year was tough. You guys saw it -- I was out there throwing batting practice half the time. But you learn from it. It makes you stronger, mentally, physically. Towards the end of the year, it seemed like I was starting to figure some things out. I sat down with our pitching guy and we were going over my pitching lanes and working pitches off of each other and my arm action and my delivery, I had to change some things up. It will be fun being able to continue that.''

And don't get Sale started on baseball's sign-stealing scandal. He won't be joining the chorus of players this spring who's launched verbal attacks on the Houston Astros.

"What's it going to do for me? What am I going to do? I mean, it sucks,'' he said. "What am I going to do? Hold 'em at gunpoint? Sit here and curse him through over a bunch of cameras? It happened. But what are you going to do about it? I can sit around and cry about it or I can get my ass to work and try to win a championship.''

It may soon a bit corny, but Sale regards himself as a custodian of the game. He doesn't want history to look back at the era in which he played and see rampant cheating and rule-bending as part of legacy of his era. He worries that the game's reputation has taken a big hit.

"I think we need to get back to playing a fair game,'' he said, "and really figuring out who is the best team is instead of figuring out who had the better upper hand. I think the game polices itself sometimes. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. I think you're going to see some stuff happen this year. I don't know if it's right, wrong or indifferent. Different people handle things differently. Guys are going to do what they feel necessary. I think some people feel more cheated than others.

"This puts a negative tone to the game of baseball for the future players of this game and it opens a door that I don't think was open before.''

Sale could easily be one of those with an ax to grind. After all, Sale's Game 1 start in the 2017 ALDS saw him give up two homers in the first inning and a total of seven runs over just five innings.

He was asked if, at the time, he suspected the Astros of somehow knowing what was coming

"Yeah! I think they ran out of fireworks in Houston,'' he said. "That guy on the train (which starts up at Minute Maid Park whenever as Astro homers), I must have kept his job for another year. That was tough. I was standing out there on the mound saying, 'How the hell are they doing this?' I mean, they're hitting breaking balls over the fence and hitting fastballs at their neck. Yeah, it crosses your mind. But what kind of idiot do you look like if they actually weren't (cheating)? I'm not going to sit and say they were because I don't have 100 percent evidence. I guess there is in the investigation, but in that specific scenario, I don't know.

"Knowing what I know now, could it be? Yeah. But I'm not here to point fingers. I'm not here to blame anybody. like I said nothing I say or do today is going to change anything from that start or 10 starts ago or eight years ago.''

Mostly, he's looking forward. In each of the last two seasons, the Red Sox have carefully developed a program for the lefty to ease into the season so that he's plenty strong at the end of the season. But both times, those plans were derailed by injuries.

"It is a little bit (discouraging),'' he allowed. "But in '18, with my shoulder, that was an actual thing that happened. Last year, with the elbow, was an actual thing that happened. You can't really prepare for that kind of stuff. You try to, but what we're looking for is just the fade. When the injuries happen, they happen. We do the best we can, but when those freak injuries happen, you have to kind of audible and do something different

"I think now that that stuff is in the rear-view mirror, we can actually focus on what we've been trying to get to. The last couple of years, we just have had a little bit of a speed bump in the way.''

And Sale is not looking in that rear-view mirror any longer.