FORT MYERS, Fla. – Chris Sale led the National League with 225 strikeouts in 177 2/3 innings last season, when the Atlanta Braves left-hander won his first Cy Young Award at age 35 and in his first season in the NL.
He didn’t strike out anyone in two scoreless innings of his spring debut Saturday, but that was of little or no importance to the Braves and Sale, who retired all six batters he faced in their Grapefruit League opener against the Minnesota Twins. He’s healthy and strong, all that matters in spring training for a veteran of his ilk.
“I feel really good,” Sale after throwing 14 strikes in 21 pitches and recording three groundouts and three lineouts, including one that right fielder Jarred Kelenic made a nice play on in the first inning of the 3-1 Braves loss. “Mechanically, I feel like I’m in a good spot. I felt like I was throwing all my pitches for strikes, and was able to kind of locate in situations when I really wanted to.”
Sale topped out at 95 mph with his fastball, averaging just below that, and didn’t throw the bevy of devastating sliders he slings to get so many of his strikeouts in games that count.
“I think we are trying to kind of limit that,” said Sale, preparing for his 15th MLB season and coming off his healthiest since 2017. “I guess you can say, save your bullets a little bit. But just really work on the things I really want to work on — command, location, delivery, arm action, that kind of stuff for right now.”
For the first time out, those boxes were checked adequately.
“I would say right now where I’m at, I’m more kind of battling myself,” Sale said. “I’m competitive. I obviously want to go out there and do well. But where we’re at right now, it’s more like, OK, how’s the delivery synching up? How’s the arm action? And just pitch quality, really. Catcher calls an inside fastball, and I leaving it high and wide? Am I kind of casting breaking balls? I’m just kind of trying to narrow everything down.”
Catcher Sean Murphy made the trip to catch Sale, the only lineup regular who played other than Kelenic, who’ll be in right field this season only until Ronald Acuña Jr. returns from knee surgery rehab in late April or May.
Sale could have started Sunday’s home opener against Tampa Bay instead of a road game at Fort Myers. But in his case, it was more convenient to hit the road. Sale and his wife, Brianne, and their three sons live in Naples, Fla., about 40 miles south of Fort Myers and less than halfway to North Port, where the Braves train.
Sale normally makes a daily 90-mile commute each way from Naples to North Port throughout the spring, so he was glad to start against the Twins in Fort Myers and cut his driving time by more than half.
“That was nice,” he said. “I think they (Braves officials) were pretty aware of that too. Little 30-minute drive instead of an hour-and-40-minute drive, so that helps.”
Sale, who was traded to the Braves in late December 2023, has been asked numerous times if he’s paused to reflect on his sensational first season with the team, when he won the NL pitching Triple Crown (wins, ERA, strikeouts) and came within three strikeouts of winning the major-league Triple Crown. (Detroit’s Tarik Skubal, the AL Triple Crown winner, had 228 strikeouts.)
Sale said he felt great, fastball averaged just over 94 mph. He’s throwing his full mix or going for strikeouts. He’s “saving his bullets” at this point of spring and at this juncture of his career.
— David O’Brien (@DOBrienATL) February 22, 2025
Had Sale not missed his final start and the Wild Card Series due to back spasms, he could have accomplished the rare MLB Triple Crown — last done in a full season by the Mets’ Johan Santana in 2006 — with just four more strikeouts.
As it was, he became the first pitcher in Atlanta’s storied pitching history to win a league Triple Crown while going 18-3 with a 2.38 ERA in 29 starts.
“Numbers can be funny, right?” he said Saturday, downplaying his accomplishment with his typical modesty. “You know, I think there was a weird thing where you win this Triple Crown, but there’s (Braves) that have struck more guys out than me, right? There are guys that had more wins than me, or guys that had a lower ERA than me. So it was like, I guess I got lucky enough to kind of do it all at the same time.”
He smiled.
“I would say it looks (like) more than it might be. I mean, you look at some of these other years, like some of the years that (Greg) Maddux had, I would have been in seventh place (in the Cy Young Award balloting),” Sale said, laughing. “So I do appreciate it. I’m aware of what it is, but they had some dogs out there before me that set the tone pretty good.”
Dodd hoping for another chance
It was two years ago at spring training when left-hander Dylan Dodd came out of nowhere to be one of the big surprises of Braves camp, earning a start in the first week of the season. He’s not done much since that spring, and gave up the tying and go-ahead runs in Saturday’s loss when the Twins got three hits and a hit batter, and lined out on a couple of other nice plays made behind Dodd in the infield.
He was not fooling any hitters, even though he was facing substitutes at that point of the spring opener.
But it was just the first game of spring, and Dodd knows not to get too carried away with results, good or bad, in Grapefruit League games.
Remember, he and Jared Shuster, another rookie with no big-league experience at the time, pitched so well at 2023 spring training that, by mid-March, they had moved ahead of the three who’d been leading contenders for the fifth-starter spot entering camp — Ian Anderson, Michael Soroka and Kyle Wright.
Dodd, who pitched in just one game above Double A before that spring, forced his way into the picture with his performance in that camp, posting a 2.00 ERA in his five Grapefruit League games including three starts, with 20 strikeouts and four walks in 18 innings.
But he laid a figurative egg soon after the season began.
He started the fifth game of the Braves’ season that year, allowing six hits and one run with no walks in five innings for the win in his MLB debut at St. Louis, but got rocked for 10 hits, seven runs and two homers in 4 1/3 innings against the San Diego Padres five days later, then was optioned to Triple A.
Dodd was recalled for two more spot starts in May, and one apiece in June, September and the season finale in October, never recapturing anything resembling the form he’d displayed in spring training or in his debut. He had an 8.59 ERA and .356 opponents’ average in those six starts after his debut, finishing 2023 with a 7.60 ERA in the majors and going 4-6 with a 6.03 ERA in 16 games (14 starts) in Triple A.
“I know my first rodeo in spring training, I kind of overdid it, you know?” Dodd said last week. “And then by the time the season rolled in, I was gassed. I poured everything into that. And I think, you know, I wouldn’t have done it differently, but I think it definitely hindered me throughout the season that year.”
He added, “Having a better understanding of all that, I think is going to help me out.”
A year later, he was pretty much a non-factor at 2024 spring training and during the season. Dodd was optioned to minor-league camp in the first week of March, went 2-7 with a 5.35 ERA in 25 games (20 starts) at Triple-A Gwinnett, and gave up four hits and two runs in two relief innings of his only big-league appearance.
Now, he’s back in major-league spring training, older (26) and wiser, and aware that the Braves might need a long reliever or a spot starter depending on how things unfold. Because he’s not out of minor-league options and other pitchers are, including starters Anderson and Grant Holmes, Dodd knows he’s not making the season-opening rotation and isn’t a leading candidate to win a bullpen job.
But unexpected things can happen. They did in the spring of 2023. And if and when he’s called upon in whatever role, he just wants to be ready.
“I think there’s definitely some opportunity out there,” Dodd said. “But honestly, I think it comes down to my performance and how I’m doing. You know, I’ve been given plenty of chances in the past two years and just haven’t lived up to the expectation or the performance I hold myself to. And I think, wherever I start out, if it’s Triple A, I think it’s just a matter of whether I can be more consistent.
“You know, I’ve shown flashes, shown that I can get guys out. But as long as I can show consistency, I know opportunities are going to come, whether it’s early in spring or later in the season.”
(Photo of Chris Sale: Gerald Herbert / Associated Press)
