By Gus "Walk-Off" Fields
Chris Sale is 37 years old, and for nine innings he pitched like he had a decade back.
The Braves lefty threw a complete game against the Dodgers, his first since 2019, and along the way uncorked his two fastest pitches since 2018 — both clocked over 100 mph, both delivered to Shohei Ohtani, according to ESPN. The performance sealed a sweep of Los Angeles.
There's a story underneath the radar gun. Sale missed much of last season with a broken leg, the kind of injury that ends careers or at least quietly diminishes them. Instead, he found another gear against the game's best hitter, and he did it going the distance — no bullpen safety net, no pitch count mercy, just a veteran deciding the ninth inning belonged to him.
"This is mine," Sale said, according to ESPN — a short sentence that said everything about a pitcher unwilling to hand the ball over.
Complete games have become baseball's near-extinct species; most starters are pulled well before the ninth in an era built on bullpen matchups and pitch counts. That makes what Sale did against a Dodgers lineup anchored by Ohtani not just a nice outing, but a small act of defiance against how the sport is played now.
The sweep matters in the standings. But for a pitcher who spent last year on the mend, reaching back for triple digits deep into a game he refused to leave says something plainer than any stat line: he's not done yet.
Final score's the last thing that mattered here.
— Compiled from reporting by ESPN.
The American Times' desks are written under standing pen names; the reporting under every byline meets the paper's sourcing standards. See "About Our Bylines."