Chris Sale is The Healthiest Sick Player for The Boston Red Sox

2/17/2020

7:01 PM

I’m not entirely sure how one can be healthy and sick at the same time, but Christopher Allen Sale is. On February 11, 2020, Chris Cotillo of MassLive.com and Red Sox beat writer tweeted, “Chris Sale is sick and will start spring slowly as a result. He’s fully healthy, though.” When I first saw this tweet, I thought that this was the most Chris Sale related tweet I have ever seen, especially since he’s coming off back to back injured seasons.

To clear all this up, Chris Sale is healthy from an athletic standpoint, which is honestly one of the only things that matter to Red Sox Nation, Sale also has been diagnosed with pneumonia, so that’s the “sick” part in all of this. Now I’ve never had pneumonia before, but I know multiple people that have, and it affects everyone differently, it also can affect you for a month go away/lay dormant in your body for up to sixish months and then resurface so not ideal for a baseball player who partakes in an occupation that involves 162 games.

Interim manager Ron Roenicke gave an update on Sales battle with pneumonia Saturday:

“He still doesn’t have full strength back,” interim manager Ron Roenicke said

“He played catch today. Stretched it out. He also did that yesterday. So, I think he’s progressing along fine. We’re going to go still a little bit easy with him.” And later in the interview noted his confidence in Sale:

“He’s huge for our starting rotation, and he’s one of the best pitchers in the game,”

As of right now, it looks like it will be a day to day situation that will be magnified to the max, considering he’s supposed to be the opening day starter for the Red Sox for the next five years. Roenicke wouldn’t say if Sale were available for the beginning part of the season. Still, one thing right that can come from this is not being overused in spring training. We have to remember here that he was shut down at the end of the season last year with an elbow injury.

Final Take:

All in all, it’s concerning that Sale has pneumonia, but id be way more concerned if something was wrong with his arm. Yes, the situation isn’t great, and pneumonia isn’t that easy to get over, but I’m in a much better place with him being “healthy sick” than “hurt sick.”