Chris Sale had just shut down one of the hottest teams in baseball, helping the banged-up Boston Red Sox take over sole possession of first place in the AL East for the first time all season.
And he looked as if he wanted to punch a wall.
Sale was two outs shy of his second consecutive complete game when Boston manager John Farrell trundled to the mound Tuesday night. But the left-hander’s pitch count had already reached 110 on the way to an 8-3 victory over the Kansas City Royals, so Farrell’s decision to summon a reliever was relatively easy.
If a bit hard to swallow for his competitive ace.
Sale (9-3) gave up a homer to Mike Moustakas in the second inning and a two-run shot to Jorge Bonifacio in the ninth before leaving the game. The five-time All-Star allowed two other hits and a walk while pushing his major league-leading strikeout total to 146.
More importantly, he got a win after going the distance in a 1-0 loss to Philadelphia last week.
Xander Bogaerts and Sandy Leon each drove in a pair of runs for Boston, which got plenty of production from a lineup missing Pablo Sandoval, Dustin Pedroia and Mitch Moreland to various injuries.
First baseman Sam Travis and third baseman Deven Marrero, recalled from Triple-A Pawtucket earlier in the day, drove in early runs to get the Red Sox off and running. Mookie Betts and Chris Young also had RBI as the new division leaders kept piling on.
Boston jumped a half-game ahead of the rival New York Yankees, who have lost seven in a row for their longest slide in a single season since April 2007.
Most of Boston’s damage came against Royals youngster Matt Strahm (2-4), who struggled to follow up his dazzling first career start. The left-hander with a delivery eerily similar to Sale’s was hammered for five runs on seven hits and a walk before exiting with nobody out in the fourth.
Strahm allowed one unearned run in five innings last week against the Angels.
Sale dominated a Royals lineup that had slugged its way to eight wins in nine games, striking out the side in the fifth for good measure. The long, lean lefty was finally lifted after Bonifacio’s homer and a base hit by Brandon Moss.
The dominant performance came after Sale twirled a complete game in his last start at Kansas City, allowing two earned runs while striking out 10 in a 7-4 victory last Sept. 16 for the White Sox.
