Braves star Chris Sale secures National League Triple Crown; will miss the wildcard series

Chris Sale didn't get to play in the Atlanta Braves' regular season finale, but he still led the National League in rushing this summer.

The Braves' ace won the pitching Triple Crown in the Netherlands and led the league in wins, ERA and strikeouts. Sale finished the season with 18 wins, a 2.38 ERA and 225 strikeouts.

This marks only the second time in the past century that pitchers have won the Triple Crown in both leagues in the same season. Detroit Tigers pitcher Tarik Skubal captured the American League Triple Crown on Sunday. The last time this happened was in 2011, when Clayton Kershaw (NL) and Justin Verlander (AL) each took home the award. The last time there were two Triple Crown winners was in 1924.

Their performances should again be the deciding factor in the Cy Young Award vote this year, as no pitcher has ever failed to win the Cy Young after winning the Triple Crown.

Sale was scheduled to play in the second game of a rescheduled doubleheader against the New York Mets on Monday, but was a last-second scratch after suffering back spasms – which reportedly first struck him on Sunday night. After winning the second game of the non-Sale doubleheader to make the playoffs, the Braves announced that their ace would miss the entire wild-card series against the San Diego Padres because of the injury.

Although Sale and Skubal profile as flippant lefties with enough speed to overwhelm hitters, they took very different paths to the Triple Crown.

Chris Sale had a career year at age 35

The sale wasn't a real comeuppance for the Braves, but it would have been hard to find an objective observer who didn't think he was past his prime.

The 35-year-old was one of the best pitchers in baseball from 2012 to 2018, a span that culminated with a World Series title with the Boston Red Sox. The cracks began to show in 2019, when Sale posted a career-worst 4.40 ERA and missed the final month and a half of the season due to elbow inflammation.

Tommy John surgery followed in 2020. In 2021, Sale returned and made just nine starts. Then he made just two starts in a 2022 season that can only be described as “cursed.” Sale missed time due to a broken rib before the season, then a broken finger, then a broken wrist. The latter occurred in a bicycle accident.

The 2023 season was comparatively better for Sale, with a 4.30 ERA in 20 starts, but that didn't change the perception that his best days were behind him. Still, the Braves decided to buy cheap by sending Vaughn Grissom, a young but powerful centerfielder, to Boston in exchange for Sale plus $17 million in cash to cover his remaining salary.

And now this.

What has changed for sale? In addition to a 1 mph increase across his arsenal, Sale threw his slider a career-high 40.3% of the time, according to Baseball Savant, at the expense of his four-seam fastball. Batters had a harder time containing him as his meaningful batted ball metrics declined across the board.

Most importantly, Sale remained healthy until the final day of the regular season, which seemed unlikely given his age and the fact that he possesses some of the most violent mechanics in baseball. The result will be his first career Cy Young Award, something that eluded him during his dominant time in the American League.