Sale's Game Score last night was 83, his best of the season.
He did have an 80 last year.
He had a 3 game stretch in 2023 where he pitched 21 innings with 27 K's and 3 BB's.
The flashes of dominance were still there. Otherwise the Braves would likely not have been interested.
"Very possible" - yikes! Nobody knows what would have happened in a do-over.
I do agree though that Millar and Mueller should get just about as much credit. That was a team run.
The Pedro trade was mammoth not just for 2004. Pedro gave a huge jolt of energy to the franchise and he was one of the guys they built a championship team around.
Things are more hopeful, but there's still room for a lot of angst about the pitching.
They still haven't shown they're prepared to do anything big about it. And they keep making blunders with the moves they do make.
What isn't bad luck is thinking a rotation of Houck, Crawford, Bello, Giolito and Pivetta + Whitlock is going to get the job done.
What isn't bad luck is not doing anything about it when Giolito and Whitlock go down.
Maybe the fact we had a bunch of guys with s***** four-seam fastballs that Bailey told them to ditch is kind of a bad thing.
Other teams seem to catch on to what you're doing after a little while!