Boston Red Sox: Chris Sale’s historic night puts him on pace to break more records

Boston Red Sox starting pitcher Chris Sale recently made history with strikeouts and is on pace to break more records this season.

Chris Sale isn’t just having one of the best seasons of his career, he’s having perhaps one of the best seasons by a Boston pitcher since Pedro Martinez. If David Price can get back to 100 percent, the Boston Red Sox may have two of the best pitchers in baseball.

The Red Sox pitching rotation might be in shambles this season without Chris Sale. With David Price just coming back from injury, Steven Wright out for the season, and Eduardo Rodriquez being hurt off and on; Boston may not be 1st in the AL East without Sale.

With his 200th strikeout, this is now Chris Sale’s 5th straight season with 200 strikeouts. He has always been a dominant strikeout artist, but this year is different. Sale is on pace to surpass 300 strikeouts, which would be a historical feat. Only 5 pitchers since 2000 have struck out 300 batters in a single season.

If you ask him, Sale would tell you he’s just worried about the win, but it’s hard not to acknowledge that what he’s doing this season is special. A pitcher who can average 1 strikeout per innings pitched is great, so Sale with 200 strikeouts in only 141 innings pitched is astounding.

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Too early to call Chris Sale the AL Cy Young award winner?

Yes, but 100 games into the season Sale is starting to pull away amongst other AL pitchers. Here are Chris Sale’s stats amongst all AL pitchers.

Wins: 12-4 (Tied for 1st)

ERA: 2.48 (1st)

WHIP: 0.89 (1st)

Strikeouts: 200 (1st)

WAR: 4.7 (1st)

*Wins Above Replacement

Barring injury, Sale is on pace to break records, win the AL Cy Young Award, and hopefully lead Boston deep into October. Not only with strikeouts, Chris Sale has improved every aspect of his game. On pace to shatter his single-season strikeout record, Sale also has the best ERA and WHIP he’s had since 2014.

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Despite Rick Porcello winning the AL Cy Young last season, Boston hasn’t seem a dominating pitcher like Sale in a while.

With a strong young core of hitters, the duo of Chris Sale and David Price anchoring the rotation, and one of the best closer’s in baseball, Craig Kimbrel; the Red Sox have positioned themselves to be World Series contenders for years to come.