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CHRIS SALE IS in a new clubhouse, a new uniform, a new city, all part of his third act. He’s content, a far cry from where he’s been in recent years. He’s also not ready to call this newest phase of his career a rebirth, even if that’s how it might look to a baseball world that seemed to have forgotten him in recent years.

“That sounds like a Disney movie,” he says. “I’m not, I guess, sentimental as that. I’m just playing baseball.”

Maybe it’s that simple. Playing is something he’s done far too sparingly over the past half-decade, and it eats at him, this notion of fragility, of unfinished business. Sale has always been at his best when he has something to prove. First, with the Chicago White Sox, who took him with the 13th pick in the 2010 draft when other teams thought he was too skinny, his delivery too unorthodox. Then with the Boston Red Sox, who introduced him to a bigger stage — and playoff baseball — and two years later moshed around him when he secured the final out of the 2018 World Series.

Now, too many injuries later, it’s with the Atlanta Braves, arguably the best team in baseball. They turned to him this winter to fortify their latest championship run, betting on Sale’s makeup and pedigree as much as the left arm that might well have some dazzle left in it.

To avoid excessive Disneyfication, perhaps it’s best to characterize Sale’s present state as a new beginning. His body is finally right. He is pumping fastballs at 97 mph and spinning sliders like the most dominant version of himself and competing like few in the game do. The disappointment, the disillusionment, the dismay — the stuff that prompted him to question if he even wanted to play anymore — is slowly fading into the ether, leaving Sale room not to rediscover who he was but to figure out who he intends to be at 35 years old.

“It took its toll on me,” he says, “but I’m here now, and we’re rolling.”


IT’S IMPOSSIBLE TO appreciate the present without reconciling the past, and that’s where Sale finds himself today. He’s still processing the past five years and everything that happened in them. Following the slider that brought then-Los Angeles Dodger Manny Machado to one knee and ended a 108-54 season with a championship, Sale signed a five-year, $145 million contract extension. He struggled in a 2019 season that ended in mid-August due to elbow inflammation, tore his ulnar collateral ligament in 2020 and never felt like himself upon his return in 2021. He suffered a fractured rib, broken pinkie and broken wrist that waylaid his 2022, and endured a stress reaction in his left shoulder blade in 2023. Misfortune has chased him relentlessly.

“It’s a double-edged sword for me,” Sale says. “The whole reason I got traded [to Boston] was to help them win a World Series. And I feel satisfied in doing that. It’s just obviously what happened after that. That’s just one of the bigger regrets in my life. It’ll always be. They made a commitment to me, and I didn’t live up for that. We made a deal: ‘We’re going to give you this because you’ve done this and you’re going to continue to do that.’ Well, I didn’t hold up my end.

“It consumes you at the time. When everything’s good, everything’s great, right? And when everything’s bad, it’s never going to be good. Now I know … you have to do the same things whether you’re successful or not successful. And I think sometimes I can get lost.”

In the midst of the injuries, Sale felt positively nomadic. The game had given him so much: seven All-Star Game selections, six top-five Cy Young finishes and a 185-gemstone ring with 4½ carats of diamonds. Now it was taking away. He struggled without baseball, and he struggled with it, and it made his mind race to the point where he broached the possibility of leaving it altogether. His wife, Brianne, and their three sons convinced him to stay the course.

“Just the fact that they’re bought in,” Sale says. “My kids absolutely love it. They love it. And my wife — she’s like, ‘Listen, I want you out to do this. You’ve been doing it for so long, what’s a few more years?’ She’s still in my corner for now. She’s not saying, ‘Hey, you need to get home.’ She’s embracing it, and she’s enjoyed it, and we’re doing it for now, and we’re going to keep doing it until we don’t.”

Even with Sale’s checkered health history, teams had inquired about acquiring him. The Texas Rangers broached the possibility at the trade deadline in 2022. Nothing materialized. Same went for Atlanta at the deadline last year. This time, though, the conversations continued into the winter, after the Red Sox replaced chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom with Craig Breslow.

Atlanta was casting a relatively wide net for starting pitching. Following their World Series win in 2021, the Braves had bowed out in the division series twice against a Philadelphia team that had finished behind them in the National League East. President of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos tried to engage with free agent starter Aaron Nola, who opted to return to the Phillies early in the offseason. Anthopoulos discussed trading for right-hander Tyler Glasnow, who would go to the Los Angeles Dodgers, the other NL powerhouse. He broached a deal for Chicago White Sox right-hander Dylan Cease, though the price in players proved too rich.

Anthopoulos kept returning to Sale, and once Boston agreed to send $17 million to help cover Sale’s salary this season, the deal had legs. Not only could Sale bolster Atlanta’s rotation, his club option for next season would provide insurance against co-ace Max Fried‘s impending free agency and right-hander Charlie Morton‘s possible retirement. Further, Anthopoulos believed Sale’s competitiveness could positively influence the growing army of young, talented arms in the Braves’ system that would benefit from modeling themselves after Sale.

“His experience, who he is as a person, a teammate, a competitor, the ability on the field — he’s a perfect fit for us in every way,” Anthopoulos says. “It’s hard for us to find a better fit talent-wise. He checks all the boxes. With him and Charlie Morton both as high-quality people and veteran playoff-caliber starters, they’re ideal for our team now and to set an example for our younger pitchers.”

Eventually, Atlanta agreed to send the talented Vaughn Grissom — who had been blocked from the majors by the Braves’ hearty core of position players — to Boston in the deal. The Red Sox, coming off their third last-place season in four years, jumped at the opportunity to secure the 23-year-old infielder and shipped off Sale.

In his first meeting with Braves brass during spring training — a session in which the team outlines expectations and endeavors to understand where players are mentally — Sale validated the instinct to acquire him. He said he would pitch any day in any role. Starter, reliever, whatever. Boston had taught him the distilled joy that comes with winning. He wanted to replicate that. As much as he needed to look into the past to remind himself what it felt like, he was laser-focused on the future and the opportunity a team as talented as Atlanta presents.

“The whole point of this is to win, be the last team standing,” Sale says. “Nothing else matters in this game. And I am not going to say I can guarantee it, but I’d like to think that there are guys that have all the accolades in the world — Hall of Famers with no ring — and if you ask them, would you trade some of this, most of this, all of this for that? I’d like to think some of them would. Most of them maybe. I’m not taking away from individual accolades. You go out there and win MVP or a Cy Young or a Silver Slugger or a Gold Glove, that’s awesome. That’s great. And you should be very proud of that. Absolutely no question. I’m not taking away from that. But in a team sport, the ultimate goal is to win something together. And that moment, I’ll never forget that. Never.”


OVER THE WINTER, Sale had aimed to put himself in the best possible position for that pursuit. The ball still sizzled out of his hand, but he craved the sort of consistency that the injuries hadn’t allowed him. Even if Sale’s numbers and peripherals in 2023 foretold a better future, wear and tear had done a number on him, so he resolved to long toss almost every day, stick to the plan and build back what had melted away in recent years.

“I know what it’s going to take for me to be successful and some of the things that I might’ve thought were good for me might not have been good for me and vice versa,” Sale says. “You figure out a lot more when you have failure, right? When you’re sitting there with a math test and you got a 52 on it, there’s a lot to work on, and you learn a lot more going through and saying, ‘This is what I’m missing,’ and you just try to correct it.

“I just needed reps. I needed to play long toss. I needed to get my arm and my body prepared for what’s going to happen. I wanted to show up more prepared to spring training. I’d rather get to spring training and have to back off, because pushing that pedal harder [there] is never a good thing. So if I show up a little bit ahead of where I’m at, it’s easier to adjust that way as opposed to showing up and saying, well, I need to do this, I got to do that, I got to do that, because you can’t buy time.”

In his first two starts, he has done more than show up. Sale threw 4⅔ scoreless innings, striking out nine and hitting 97.1 mph with his fastball. Though spring training statistics are notoriously unrepresentative, the quality of Sale’s stuff has validated Atlanta’s decision soon after acquiring him to pick up Sale’s option for 2025 and tack on another club option for 2026. Rather than the $20-21 million in present value that Sale’s extension with Boston guaranteed, he will make $38 million over the next two years and could reap another $20 million if the Braves pick up the 2026 option.

Sale yearns for this contract to wind up better for his team than the last one. And that manifests itself not just through the work Sale has put in long tossing and doing shoulder maintenance but in the wisdom he provides and the behavior he models.

Sale doesn’t necessarily actively lead. This group naturally follows him. Whether it’s Fried, co-ace Spencer Strider, any of the other live arms that populate the Braves’ system or even position players, they glean a single-mindedness from Sale the moment they meet him. They feel his hatred for his opponent on the day he pitches and don’t want to disappoint by not matching it. Culture that grows organically is the best kind, and emulating Chris Sale — or, at very least, learning from him — provides Atlanta an element it lacked in recent years. He is an indisputable alpha, his word treated as if it were shouted from a mountaintop.

“He’s a fiery competitor,” Atlanta catcher Sean Murphy says. “You wonder if that guy is who he is, and yeah, he’s exactly who he is. He just wants to win and he just wants to pitch. He just wants to go compete. That’s what makes him go. He just loves competition. He’s much more interested in mano-a-mano, that kind of baseball. He’s got the stuff, the delivery. Everything else works for him, so it just allows him to go out and try and dominate.”

After too many seasons feeling sidelined, Sale wants to be everything in Atlanta: pitcher, coach, adviser and motivator. In that sense, it is something of a rebirth — a fresh start with a particular end in mind. Whether it’s as a starter or reliever, Sale wants to win another championship, and now he’s on a team in position to do it.

“I got one in the AL,” Sale says. “Let’s get one in the NL.”

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Utes’ Whittingham reenergized after ’24 free fall

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Utes' Whittingham reenergized after '24 free fall

FRISCO, Texas — A dynamic new quarterback, a new offensive system and two projected first-round picks up front have Utah coach Kyle Whittingham feeling enthusiastic about the Utes’ chances of bouncing back from a disastrous debut season in the Big 12.

Utah was voted No. 1 in the Big 12 preseason poll last year after joining from the Pac-12, but a brutal run of injuries and inconsistency resulted in a seven-game conference losing streak and a 5-7 finish — the program’s first losing season since 2013.

After weeks of contemplation about his future and what was best for the program, Whittingham, the third-longest-tenured head coach in FBS, decided in December to return for his 21st season with the Utes.

“The bottom line and the final analysis was I couldn’t step away on that note,” Whittingham told ESPN at Big 12 media days Wednesday. “It was too frustrating, too disappointing. As much as college football has changed with all the other factors that might pull you away, that was the overriding reason: That’s not us, that’s not who we are. It just left a bad taste in my mouth. I did not want to miss the opportunity to try to get that taste out.”

“The bottom line and the final analysis was I couldn’t step away on that note. It was too frustrating, too disappointing. … That’s not us. That’s not who we are. It just left a bad taste in my mouth. I did not want to miss the opportunity to try to get that taste out.”

Utah coach Kyle Whittingham on going 5-7 in 2024

Whittingham and Utes defensive coordinator Morgan Scalley conducted a national search for a new offensive coordinator and quickly zeroed in on New Mexico‘s Jason Beck. Then they managed to land Devon Dampier, Beck’s first-team All-Mountain West quarterback, via the transfer portal.

After finishing 11th nationally in total offense with 3,934 yards and 31 total touchdowns and putting up the fourth-most rushing yards (1,166) among all FBS starters, Dampier followed his coach to Salt Lake City and immediately asserted himself as a difference-maker for a program that had to start four different QBs in 2024.

“He’s a terrific athlete,” Whittingham said. “He’s a guy that, if spring is any indication, he’s an exciting player, and we can’t wait to watch him this season. … He’s got that ‘it’ factor. He’s a leader. Needless to say, very excited to see what he does for us.”

They’ve surrounded Dampier with 21 more newcomers via the transfer portal and will protect him with two returning starters at tackle in Spencer Fano and Caleb Lomu, who are projected first-round NFL draft picks by ESPN’s Matt Miller.

“We feel they’re the best tandem in the country,” Whittingham said. “The offensive line in general, I feel, it’s the best since I’ve been there. And that’s quite a statement. We’ve had some really good offensive lines. We’ve got two first-rounders and three seniors inside that have played a lot of good football for us. That better be a strength of ours, and that’s what we’re counting on.”

Whittingham has previously said he did not want to coach past the age of 65. Now that he’s 65, he acknowledges that he might’ve arrived at a different decision about his future had the Utes ended up winning the Big 12 in 2024. He is reenergized about getting them back into contention, but he’s not ready to say whether this season might be his last.

“The best answer I can give you is, right now, I’m excited and passionate about going to work every single day,” Whittingham said. “As soon as that changes, I’ll know it’s time. I’m just counting on knowing when the time is right. I can’t tell you exactly what the circumstances will be other than losing the fire in the belly.”

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MLB to utilize ABS challenge system during ASG

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MLB to utilize ABS challenge system during ASG

The automated ball-strike system is coming to the All-Star Game next week in Atlanta.

MLB officials added the feature to the annual exhibition game knowing it could be a precursor to becoming a permanent part of the major leagues as soon as next year.

The same process used this past spring training will be used for the Midsummer Classic: Each team will be given two challenges with the ability to retain them if successful. Only a pitcher, catcher or hitter can ask for a challenge and it has to happen almost immediately after the pitch. The player will tap his hat or helmet indicating to the umpire he wants to challenge while any help from the dugout or other players on the field is not allowed.

MLB officials say 72% of fans who were polled during spring training said the impact of ABS on their experience at the game was a “positive” one. Sixty-nine percent said they’d like it part of the game moving forward. Just 10% expressed negativity toward it.

MLB’s competition committee will meet later this summer to determine if ABS will be instituted next season after the league tested the robotic system throughout the minor leagues and spring training in recent years. Like almost any rule change, there were mixed reviews from players about using ABS but nearly all parties agree on one point: They prefer a challenge system as opposed to the technology calling every pitch.

As was the case in spring training, once a review is initiated, an animated replay of the pitch will be shown on the scoreboard and the home plate umpire will either uphold the call or overturn it. ABS uses Hawk-Eye system technology which tracks the pitch trajectory and location in relation to the strike zone, providing an instant assessment which can be relayed to the home plate umpire.

The All-Star Game will be played at Truist Park in Atlanta on Tuesday.

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Royals sign former Cy Young winner Keuchel

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Royals sign former Cy Young winner Keuchel

The Kansas City Royals have signed former Cy Young Award winner Dallas Keuchel to a minor league contract, the team announced Wednesday.

The 37-year-old left-hander will start at Triple-A Omaha and will earn a prorated $2 million salary if he reaches the big leagues, sources tell ESPN’s Jeff Passan.

Keuchel has not pitched in the majors for nearly a full calendar year. He elected to become a free agent on July 18, 2024, after being designated for assignment by the Milwaukee Brewers.

In four starts with the Brewers last season, Keuchel had a 5.40 ERA in 16 2/3 innings without a decision. In 13 major league seasons, the 2015 American League Cy Young winner with the Houston Astros is 103-92 with a 4.04 ERA in 282 appearances (267 starts).

After pitching his first seven seasons with the Astros, Keuchel has made appearances for six different teams since 2019. He won a World Series with Houston in 2017 and is a two-time All-Star selection and five-time Gold Glove winner.

Information from Field Level Media was used in this report.

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