ST. PETERSBURG, Fla -- It may be hyperbolic to describe the Red Sox' second game of their first postseason series this fall as a "must win,'' but only slightly.
Trailing the Tampa Bay Rays one game to none in their best-of-live American League Division Series, the Red Sox badly need a split in Friday night's Game 2 at Tropicana Field. Anything less and the Sox will be down 2-0, needing three straight wins against a team that has dominated them since mid-season.
As Chris Sale spent 16 months recovering from Tommy John surgery and missed almost exactly, to the day, two full years off the mound, it's likely he thought about moments like the one he'll face Friday night: His team team desperate for a victory and Sale intent on providing it.
That was actually the case last Sunday at Nationals Park when the Red Sox gave the ball to Sale in Game 162, and he quickly gave it back, lifted in the third inning, already trailing. Sale lacked his customary control, walking three and allowing two runs. His changeup was virtually nonexistent.
Five days later, Sale gets another crack at a Big Game, hoping for a far better result.
"I mean, I did absolutely nothing to help our team win,'' Sale lamented. "I actually put us in a horrendous spot in that game and our guys could have taken that one of two ways and gotten down, that me going out there (and not) doing what I was supposed to do and the plan not unfolding. Being down late in the game, coming back, rallying back, that was huge. I was obviously very appreciative of that because that would have been not fun.''
Through his arduous recovery process, Sale had already done a lot of watching. Sitting in the dugout from the third inning on, not contributing again, gave him that same helpless, detached feeling he had experienced while rehabbing.
As Sale has worked his way back, he knows he's not fully himself. While the fastball has been lively at times, it lacks its usual velocity, sitting more 94-95 mph rather than the pre-surgery 97-98 he could dial up at will. The slider has often been his best pitch. But his changeup remains very much a pitch in progress. Sale said Thursday of 10 he throws, four are "really good, two are 'eh,' and the others ones are, you know, batting practice.''
That's made pitching down the stretch, and now into the postseason, a challenge.
"I'm figuring this stuff out as we go,'' he said. "I'm not really fighting against anybody as much as I'm fighting against myself, trying to sharpen my tools and make better pitches and be (consistent).''
It's been a laborious process, and often a lonely one. But Sale now feels the urgency of the moment. And while he didn't ask to be the one tasked with essentially saving the Red Sox season, it's a a responsibility he embraces.
"This is all the baseball we have left,'' he said, "and we're going to get to certain points in these series where tomorrow night might not come. So if that's the case and it's what's called upon, it's my job. It's what I signed up for.''
Indeed, and fairly or unfairly, it comes with the paycheck. Sale is already one-third of the way through the five-year, $145 million contract extension he signed in March of 2019, and because of the injury, has supplied just 42.2 innings and five wins.
However unfair it may be to link salary with performance, the fact is that the Sox retained and signed Sale precisely for moments like this Game 2 start. Nathan Eovaldi may be, for now, the team's most dependable starter, but Sale remains the acknowledged leader of the staff and its certified ace.
"I know a lot of people like to think about the glitz and the glam of what it's like being (in this spot),'' said Sale, "but the grit and grind is what we're here for. This is what we actually signed up to do, and this is what we live for, so if it's the first 15, 18, 21 outs or the last two, three or six, whatever it is, we've got a bunch of pitchers in there that have the same mindset. It doesn't matter when or where. Just hand me the ball, and I'm going to sling it until you take it.''