Chicago White Sox starting pitcher Chris Sale. Bruce Kluckhohn-USA TODAY Sports
DETROIT — Chris Sale is a managerial quandary waiting to happen every time he pitches.
That possibility will take place again Tuesday when the Chicago White Sox visit the St. Louis Cardinals for an inter-league game and Sale starts the first of the two games.
There are two known quantities when Sale pitches.
One is that there will be a lot of strikeouts, probably 10 or more if Sale manages to get to the seventh.
The other is that he will bring no-hit stuff into the game on most days.
So the question was posed to manager Robin Ventura prior to Sunday’s 5-4 loss to the Detroit Tigers as to whether he’d let Sale go for a no-hitter if, hypothetically, he had thrown 120-125 pitches through eight innings.
“I hope he puts me in that spot,” Ventura said. “I have an idea, but put me in that spot and we’ll see what happens.”
Pitchers with high strikeout totals generally have high pitch-counts along about the fifth, sixth or seventh innings. So a no-hitter is a tough call for a manager.
Does he let his guy go for glory? Or does he err on the side of safety and tell everybody he’s thinking of the pitcher’s future.
“It would be a tough decision,” Ventura said. “I hope he puts me in that spot. Who knows what you’re going to do at that point, depending on how his game is going.
“Let’s see how he got there.”
