It is late August for his teammates, but for Chris Sale, it is still early April.
After a two-year layoff and Tommy John surgery, Sale has a lot of catching up to do, The velocity isn't 100 percent back yet, and his slider, for now, lacks its customary bite.
There is still additional arm strength to build, and when that comes, the leash from his manager will get longer. For now, though, he's still feeling his way back. That's only natural for someone who has missed so much time.
But even two starts in, Sale understands his job. It's not just to pitch for the Red Sox. It's to be their pitching talisman, their mound guide, Even as he is still ramping up, his teammates look to him for more.
When he made his celebrated return last weekend at Fenway, his team was coming off a demoralizing series loss to Tampa Bay, having lost additional ground in the standings. So it fell to Sale to turn things around, which he did with five strong innings.
On Friday night at Fenway, the look from his teammates -- consciously or not -- had a little more desperation to it. Earlier in the week, the Red Sox had been humiliated by the Yankees in a series sweep in the Bronx. The Yankees had not only beaten them three straight, but had passed the Sox in the standings, too.
So some additional urgency fell on Sale and his powerful, surgically-repaired left arm. If you looked closely, you could almost see the Red Sox silently pleading to him.
Help.
Some would find this too much to ask. Some would remind them that he is still getting acclimated to pitching against big league competition and to expect that he would come to their rescue would be an unreasonable request.
Not Sale.
"That's what I'm here to do,'' said Sale after he tossed five shutout innings in a 6-0 win over the Texas Rangers. "I understand where I'm coming from -- I had surgery on my arm. I'm just coming back, I'm just coming back from a rehab assignment, But I have a job here to do and my job is to win games and especially given the circumstances -- we didn't play well in New York and that series got away from us. To be able to come here and post up and get us on the right track, that's my job. That's what I'm supposed to do.''
Despite the team's struggles in recent weeks, the starting pitching has actually been strong over the last two weeks -- Nick Pivetta's cameo in New York notwithstanding. Over the previous 12 games before Friday night, the Boston rotation had cobbled together a 3.12 ERA and in 11 of those 12, allowed three earned runs or fewer.
But there's a difference between, say, gutting through five or six innings from one of the other starters and having Sale on the mound. And that's felt in the dugout and clubhouse.
"Obviously we know, for his whole career, he's been a stopper,'' said Xander Bogaerts, who provided Sale with the only support he would need with a first-inning RBI single. "He's always been the best pitcher on the teams he's been on and had a marvelous career. That's what we kind of needed tonight - to set the tone, he did it. We had that losing streak, but we came back home (with Sale on the mound). It's a nice way to start a series.''
Not only does Sale know his role and understand his importance to his team, but he can also look at the standings and read the calendar. This might be his April, but in reality, it's crunch time, No time to waste.
"It's a little different hitting the ground with the tires not spinning,'' acknowledged Sale. "We're 120-something games in. But not one part of me doesn't love that. I love that it's sink or swim. I live in the fact that it's do or die. If I don't pitch well, it's not going to help. I kind of have to pitch good for us to succeed. Not just me, but everybody on this team. Our hitters have to score runs, we've got to play good defense, our bullpen's got to hold it down.
"We don't have the luxury of saying 'we have time.' We don't have a lot of baseball left. We don't have this, we don't have that. It's crunch time. We've got to go. And I enjoy that part of it.''
Not just enjoy, but thrive. Two starts down, another seven or so to go. Chris Sale is making up for lost time, and if the Red Sox want to put their troubles on him, he's ready for the load.