WS Game 4, In Which Chris Sale Reaches His Breaking Point

Chris Sale usually reveals almost no emotion on his face. There are exceptions, but most of the time, you'd be hard-pressed to know if he has struck out the last six batters or given up back-to-back home runs.

Last night, the Dodgers led 4-0 and were three innings away from tying the World Series at two games apiece. Sale had watched his teammates play for more than seven hours the night before, and lose in 18 innings, and now they had managed only one measly hit against Rich Hill for six innings. The slender lefty sat on the bench and stewed. Then he decided that he had had enough.

Jen McCaffrey, The Athletic:

Enter Chris Sale — not into the game, but playing the role as a slightly unhinged hype-man.

The TV broadcast showed Sale, veins popping from his neck and screaming his lungs out (to no [one] in particular) as his teammates shuffled by in the dugout.

"Sir......this is a Wendy's." pic.twitter.com/ggeNTjQG2J

— Cut4 (@Cut4) October 28, 2018

Eduardo Rodriguez: I was inside [the clubhouse] ... I heard him screaming to them and I know he was screaming something about "get back get in the game. Go out and do your job and let's score runs," and that worked pretty good.

Assistant hitting coach Andy Barkett: I didn't want to look at him, that's for sure. He's an intimidating dude and he was pissed. ...

Pitching coach Dana LeVangie: You ever been around somebody that has been really angry that maybe you shouldn't say anything or look at him? ...

Manager Alex Cora (smirking): Chris, in the dugout screaming? My English is very limited, so I didn't understand what he was saying ...

Rafael Devers: I was definitely there. ... It scared me a little bit because I had never seen him yell like that and the words that he was saying, I had never heard that come from him before. But ... that moment helped us get motivated for the rest of the game. ...

Brock Holt: I was down in the tunnel I heard someone yelling. And Mookie came down, he was going down to watch some video. And I said, "Who’s yelling up there?" He said, "Sale". Oh, my god, he was mad at us. I think that kind of lit a fire under everybody. We didn’t want to see him mad anymore. ...

Barkett: A player doing something like that? No. ... You've got, "Let's go. Here we go," that type of stuff. But a guy really just controlling the dugout like that, you don't see that very often. ...

Cora: For Chris to actually even talk in the dugout ... [H]e felt that he needed to say something and, like I said, I didn't understand, but whatever it was it worked.

Ken Davidoff of the Post wrote that Sale's teammates "are anything but transfixed — most of them pass by Sale as one would do a sidewalk preacher in New York City". ... (That is perfect.)

Ace & Hype Man 🗣 pic.twitter.com/4GbVHavMFw

— Boston Red Sox (@RedSox) October 28, 2018