By Damon Knight, Tribune Correspondent On Monday, March 30th, Boston Red Sox’s ace Chris Sale underwent Tommy John surgery on his 31st birthday to repair a Flexor strain in his left elbow. The left-handed hurler was reportedly feeling pain during a bullpen session at the beginning of March and it got progressively worse as Sale had to stop pitching. Red Sox chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom said, “He experienced enough pain that we had to put a stop to it,” Bloom said. “He huddled with us, from folks that were on-site and on the phone, where we put our heads together and made this determination. We knew obviously when he had the setback at the beginning of the month that this was a possibility. When we let the flexor calm down and ramped him up again, he didn’t respond as we had hoped and that’s where we are today.”
Sale’s decision to forgo the procedure was announced on March 19th and it had to be put on hold for 11-days because of COVID-19. ESPN’s Jeff Passan stated, Sale’s decision to have the surgery was out of fear he would miss a profound amount of time in the season to come by delaying it. Sale was shut down in August last year after a left elbow injury.
Sale signed a 5-year, $145M contract extension with Boston in March and is coming off his worse season since winning the World Series in 2018. He went 6-11 with an ERA of 4.40 in 25 starts in 2019. It was the first time in his career where he had the fewest wins, starts and the highest ERA in the Majors. It was also the first time in Sale’s career where he failed to make the top six in the CY Young Award voting in any full season as a starter. His recovery time said to be 14-16 months, which is right in the middle of 2021 season. “We look forward to his return sometime next year,” Bloom said.
