After the Braves lost the first game of Monday’s doubleheader with the Mets, president of baseball operations and general manager Alex Anthopoulos – not manager Brian Snitker – walked into the interview room and sat at the table. Anthopoulos delivered the latest bit of ominous news in a season that has featured so much of it.
The Braves scratched Chris Sale from the second game of the doubleheader due to back spasms. They started Grant Holmes instead.
“He’d been throwing all week to keep his arm going, last night after the game, he went to the cages to throw, came in after and told us his back was tight,” Anthopoulos said. “We talked to him about it and he said he’d pitched with worse and so on. So we said we’d see how you feel tomorrow morning.
“So around noon today, I came into the office and the more we talked about it, the right thing is to not (start him). It’s not an (injured-list situation), it’s a day-to-day thing. And again, if we could have him pitch and it was safe, we’d do that. But regardless, where we want to go, we need him. We need him going forward. So Grant Holmes will start today’s game and that’s part of trying to piece everything together right now.”
Anthopoulos said Sale first felt the back discomfort in his Sept. 19 start at Cincinnati. In that outing, Sale’s velocity dropped to the point where his fastball dipped to 89 mph. Manager Brian Snitker said he believes Sale has dealt with the back issue on and off throughout the season.
The most obvious question is this: Will Sale be healthy enough to pitch Tuesday’s Game 1 of a potential wild-card series in San Diego – or in that series at all? Anthopoulos could not say. He’s been working with the medical staff to determine that. Braves manager Brian Snitker said it’s unlikely Sale will pitch in the wild card round after the Braves clinched a playoff berth with a 3-0 win over the Mets.
Before Snitker said that, Anthopoulos said this: “That’s what we’re going through now (if he could start Tuesday). My first question from a roster-building standpoint is if this is a week, 10 days. two weeks; being candid, if we’d known this and expected this – Grant Holmes threw an inning-plus a day ago. We wouldn’t have thrown him in that game if there was any scenario – that just doesn’t happen.”
Snitker said Bryce Elder, AJ Smith-Shawver and Ian Anderson could be options to start Tuesday’s Game 1 against the Padres. Snitker said the Braves hadn’t yet come up with a pitching plan for that first game, and that the team had four hours in the air on its flight to San Diego to figure that out.
When Anthopoulos announced the Sale news, it seemed unlikely that we’d see Sale on the mound in San Diego.
After all, if Sale wasn’t healthy enough to start a game that could send the Braves home, would he be fine to pitch 24 hours from then?
“We’re just not ready to rule anything out because it’s a spasm,” Anthopoulos said. “Trying to ask the medical staff, at any time it breaks, and he’s good. I don’t have anything more for you right now but we’ll know more probably in a few hours and we’ll know more tomorrow morning.”
After Sale’s velocity dipped in Cincinnati, Snitker and Sale both said the ace was fine. Snitker maintained this when the Braves gave Sale an extra day off before his start against the Mets – which never occurred because of the hurricane postponements. The Braves devised their pitching plans for the final five days with the intent to only use Sale if they were facing elimination.
Anthopoulos said the Braves didn’t expect this. You can believe him there. Holmes pitched 1 2/3 innings, and threw 21 pitches, in Sunday’s game against the Royals. He wouldn’t have done that if the Braves were preparing for the possibility that he’d start on Monday.
At first, the Braves’ Game 1 loss to the Mets seemed to be bad news because it meant they’d need to use Sale for the second game, to save their season. Now, it’s unclear whether they’ll even have Sale in San Diego.
“Chris, at the end of the day, there were many times he was ready to go,” Anthopoulos said. “He’s been ready to go the entire time. All our starters throughout the year are dealing with stuff. Chris has said he’s pitched with way worse. But at the end of the day, worst that can happen is he goes out there for an inning, two innings, three innings, and it’s not good – we have to qualify for the postseason – we lose him for the postseason or he’s impacted for next year, it ends up becoming an issue with his arm or something. It just didn’t make sense to end up doing that.”
If Sale could’ve pitched in the second game of the doubleheader, then the Braves took an unnecessary risk with their season on the line. But it sounded as if the team was concerned Sale might risk a worse injury.
Sale will be part of their 2025 rotation. Plus, they need him if they hope to have a deep postseason run. The Braves didn’t want to put him in an unsafe spot.
“When we had done all of our plans and talked with all of our starters, (Sale) said he’s pitched with stuff all year, his entire career and he’s ready to go,” Anthopoulos said. “This is the first time he came to us and said, ‘Look, I don’t know about tomorrow.’ This was the first time he’d said I don’t know, but let’s see. It’s a day-to-day thing right now. … It’s a spasm. We talked about it collectively, the right thing is to (not pitch him) and let it go day-to-day and make sure that he’s right. That’s where we’re at.”
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