HOUSTON — After giving the Red Sox a good scare, Chris Sale plans to rejoin his teammates here Tuesday. Yet the ace’s superiors weren’t quite ready to sign off on him taking his next turn in the starting rotation for this American League Championship Series.
The left-hander was released from Massachusetts General Hospital on Monday morning, the team announced, after getting admitted Sunday for a stomach illness.
“We need him to get here first and then see how he feels,” Red Sox manager Alex Cora said Monday at Minute Maid Park, before a team workout. “It’s more than the Red Sox. It’s about the individual. So everything I heard, he should be fine and it’s a matter of him to show up and we’ll talk to him and see how he feels physically and go from there.”
Sale started ALCS Game 1 for the Red Sox, expending 86 pitches over four innings and allowing two runs; he ultimately took a no-decision in the Astros’ 7-2 victory. That ordinarily would put him on a track to start Game 5 Thursday night at Minute Maid.
“We were all pretty surprised when we found out the news,” former Yankee Nathan Eovaldi, who will start ALCS Game 3 on Tuesday afternoon, said of Sale’s illness. “I’ve heard nothing but good things about him now.”
The Red Sox, who possess the clearly inferior pitching staff in this series, will likely need more good things from Sale if they are to win this series and advance to the Fall Classic.