After Chris Sale’s rib injury, a familiar question for Braves: Seriously?

As it always does, time will tell. But a play that could be viewed as a symbol of the team’s resolve may, after it was revealed Saturday that Sale fractured his left rib cage making the play, represent instead all of the trap doors that this team has fallen through this season.

The 0-7 start. Jurickson Profar’s PED suspension. Reynaldo López’s shoulder surgery. Spencer Strider’s hamstring strain. A.J. Smith-Shawver’s season-ending Tommy John surgery. Playing 10 one-run games in a span of 22 games and losing all 10, including the final five games of that stretch.

And now, add Sale’s injury from diving to the Truist Park turf to field Juan Soto’s ninth-inning ground ball, a play that helped the Braves clinch the three-game series over the Mets. For the Braves, it’s a brutal turn – this spine-tingling show of all-out effort possibly turning into an accelerator of the 2025 Braves’ demise.

“It’s a tough blow for us and him,” manager Brian Snitker told reporters Saturday prior to the team’s game against the Marlins in Miami. “He was throwing so well. That’s a rough one.”

It doesn’t have to be the end. For the time being, the Braves will stick with 20-year-old Didier Fuentes, called up from Triple-A Gwinnett to make his MLB debut Friday against the Marlins. He was the loser, leaving the game down 4-1 after five innings, but he hardly embarrassed himself. He gave up six hits, the costliest being a three-run home run, and struck out three while walking one.

There’s some promise there.

“I’ll tell you what, that fastball at the bottom of the zone is some kind of live,” Snitker said after the game. “The secondary stuff was better than what I expected. There’s a lot of pitchability there.”

But this is going to be a bear to overcome, and we’re not talking about Marcell Ozuna. While players have come back from rib fractures in about two weeks, a month is more likely, and it could be longer.

If the Braves were sailing along and there was an obvious candidate to step in for Sale, this would be more easily stomached.

But the Braves are on the outer reaches of the postseason race and are in the thick of a decisive stretch of games. The whole reason Fuentes was called up was because the Braves wanted to optimize the pitching rotation for the upcoming four-game road series against the Mets and the ensuing three-game home series against the Phillies.

That certainly included Sale. After winning the NL Cy Young in 2024 and then enduring a slow start this year, Sale was pitching phenomenally. In his past 10 starts, he was averaging 6.6 innings per start with an ERA of 1.23 and a 1.00 WHIP.

Now, instead of being able to count on arguably the best pitcher in the National League for starts against the two teams ahead of them in the division and beyond, the Braves are left scrambling.

Knowing their history, the Braves will stick together and keep fighting. Profar is eligible to return July 2. Spencer Strider appears to be coming on. Ronald Acuña Jr. is playing out of his mind. Now would be a good time for someone – maybe Ozzie Albies and Michael Harris II – to get hot.

“It’s not the first time we’ve been through this,” Snitker said. “We’ve lost our best position players, our best pitchers all in the same year. We’ve handled it before and we will again.”

Don’t count on the Braves to wave any white flags.

Wednesday, hours before Sale’s fateful start, president of baseball operations and general manager Alex Anthopoulos appeared on 680 the Fan. In answering a question about the Braves possibly becoming sellers at the trade deadline, maybe even dealing Sale, Anthopoulos was firm in saying that he will not trade the ace.

He added that, even at this early stage, he was trying to make a trade “just to signal to everybody that, ‘Hey, we will not sell.’”

It was reminiscent of his 2021 All-Star break swap for outfielder Joc Pederson days after Acuña suffered a season-ending ACL tear and similarly raised questions about whether the team would switch into seller mode. The move, made when the team was 44-45, signaled Anthopoulos’ belief in the team and ultimately helped deliver the team the World Series championship.

But Anthopoulos also offered show hosts Nick Cellini and Chris Dimino a caveat.

“You get to the end of July, (if) things are completely changed, I guess we would reevaluate,” he said. “It would have to be extreme, but we’re built to win. Our expectations are to win and expectations are to go for it the entire time.”

A slide triggered by the absence of Sale would seem like one such extreme outcome.

In the meantime, take heed, young Didier Fuentes – a fandom turns its lonely eyes to you.