Chris Sale Finishes 1-0 Shutout on 109 Pitches, Completing Braves' Dodgers Sweep

Q: How did an emotional tragedy fuel Chris Sale to reach a pitching velocity he hadn't seen in nearly a decade?

Chris Sale said the death of close family friend Ashley Foss gave him an extra emotional edge, and that intensity appeared to help him reach velocity he had not touched since 2018. Before the game, Sale learned Foss had died at 42 after a long illness. He said he took the mound with a “heavy heart” and felt as if he had “a little something else helping” him, adding, “there’s no question that was her out there.” Braves manager Walt Weiss said Sale had “a different look in his eye” and was clearly “on a mission.” That emotional charge showed up in his stuff. Against Shohei Ohtani in the third inning, Sale threw a 100.1 mph fastball, his hardest pitch since July 6, 2018. Later, he struck out Ohtani on a 99.6 mph heater, also one of his hardest pitches in years. Sale himself tied that effort to the moment and the opponent, saying of Ohtani, “When you’re facing the best, you’ve got to bring your best.” The result was one of Sale’s most powerful outings in years: a complete-game, five-hit shutout with 11 strikeouts and no walks in Atlanta’s 1-0 win over the Dodgers. In effect, grief, adrenaline and personal motivation combined to produce a performance — and a fastball — that looked like a throwback to Sale’s peak.

Q: What makes a rookie catcher's first-pitch home run a historic anomaly never before seen in baseball's modern era?

What made it historic was the exact combination of roles, timing and outcome. Drake Baldwin, a rookie catcher batting leadoff, hit the very first pitch of the game for a home run, and that swing stood as the only run in Atlanta’s 1-0 win over Los Angeles. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, no catcher in the Modern Era, which dates to 1900, had ever led off a game with a home run that also served as the lone run in a 1-0 victory. Catchers rarely bat leadoff to begin with, making the setup unusual before the pitch was even thrown. Adding a first-pitch homer and a 1-0 final score turned it into a statistical outlier. The rarity is even clearer in broader context. Across Major League Baseball since 1900, this was only the 33rd time that a leadoff home run accounted for the only run in a game. For the Braves, it was their first such 1-0 win on a leadoff homer in the Modern Era. So the anomaly was not just that Baldwin homered. It was that a catcher — and a rookie at that — opened the game with the first pitch, and that one swing decided the entire game in a way baseball had never previously recorded in the modern record book.

3 articles · Updated · Fox News · Aug 28

109 pitches carried Chris Sale through a 1-0 complete-game shutout Thursday, a rare feat in a season with only nine such shutouts across Major League Baseball.
11 strikeouts and five hits allowed powered Sale's first shutout since 2019, with Drake Baldwin supplying the game's only run on a solo homer.
Atlanta's victory completed a sweep of Los Angeles and marked Sale's first complete game since 2019, underscoring how unusual it was to leave him in for the ninth near 100 pitches.
The outing also highlighted Sale's late-game power: he reached 100.1 mph during the start and finished with a 98.6 mph 109th pitch.