Sale talks his way back into starting rotation
Another day, another change in the plan for Chris Sale.
After Sale's Thursday MRI came back clean, the Sox announced that Sale would indeed be returned back to the starting rotation. It was a week earlier on May 4 that the Sox first announced that soreness in the elbow after several starts gave the team no choice but to move Sale from the rotation to the bullpen.
However, Sale talked his way back into his old spot before the 5-0 win over Kansas City, and will now start on Saturday.
"He's back in (the rotation)," White Sox manager Robin Ventura said before Friday's series opener with the Royals.
Sale, who was 3-1 with a 2.81 ERA as a starter, ended up being a pretty good salesman, after the lefty met with general manager Ken Williams, pitching coach Don Cooper and Ventura in a 45-minute meeting.
"Let's just say I really, really thought I could do this," Sale said. "This is something that's been a dream of mine and a passion of mine for very long, and at the end of the day, I felt that I could do this and felt poorly that I set a goal to do this and fell drastically short.
"I felt like I was letting my teammates down and felt like I was depending on other people to pick up my slack."
Sale did make one relief appearance, allowing one unearned run on Tuesday at Cleveland.
"MRI is clean and pristine," Williams said. "He's going to pitch."
But he will pitch under a very close watch from all around him.
"We are very conservative in our approach with regards to the care of particularly our pitchers," Williams said. "I think our history, when you look at all the injury reports over the last dozen years, will show you that. The course of action that we've taken with (Sale) has not been unlike the course of action we've taken with many of our minor league guys in such situations."
Sale will be limited to a pitch count for the time being, and they will stay away from his slider a little more than he had been. That means fastballs and changeups, with the slider thrown in every so often.
