Red Sox Never Could Have Predicted Chris Sale Trade Would Flop This Badly

The lefty has almost as many Braves WAR as he did in Boston

Aug 20, 2026; Chicago, Illinois, USA; Atlanta Braves pitcher Chris Sale (51) smiles in the dugout prior to a game against the Chicago White Sox at Rate Field. Mandatory Credit: Patrick Gorski-Imagn Images | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

It feels like everything that could possibly be said about the Boston Red Sox trading Chris Sale to the Atlanta Braves has been. But very once in a while, we have to return to the subject.

On Thursday night, with the Red Sox idle, Sale pitched his best game of the season at Truist Park. He outdueled Los Angeles Dodgers ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto and picked up a complete-game shutout in a 1-0 win to sweep the defending World Series champions.

The point of this article isn't to bash the Red Sox for the umpteenth time. It's to marvel at how incredibly good Sale has been for the Braves, and how long he's already done it for. The Red Sox simply never could have seen that coming.

Sale tops 100 mph, throws best game as a Brave

Aug 27, 2026; Cumberland, Georgia, USA; Atlanta Braves pitcher Chris Sale (51) reacts after the Braves defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers at Truist Park. Mandatory Credit: Dale Zanine-Imagn Images | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

With 11 strikeouts, five hits allowed, two hit batsmen, and no walks, Sale put up a game score of 88. It was what he did against Shohei Ohtani in the top of the third inning that turned the most heads, since the lefty did something he hadn't in almost a decade.

Chris Sale threw Shohei Ohtani a 100.1 MPH fastball.

It was the first time he's thrown over 100 MPH since 2018, and the seventh-fastest pitch of his career pic.twitter.com/zz0ysWakRF

— Talkin' Baseball (@TalkinBaseball_) August 28, 2026

The 100.1 mph fastball seen above was Sale's hardest pitch since he was the ace of the 2018 Red Sox, the best team in franchise history. He was untouchable that summer before his arm troubles started to become an issue, limiting his innings down the stretch and in the postseason and quietly starting the spiral that made his extension with the Red Sox a losing value proposition.

Despite that amazing 2018 season and the Cy Young Award runner-up that preceded it in 2017, Sale only put up 17.0 bWAR in his six years as a Red Sox. In 2 2/3 years as a Brave, his bWAR total is now up to 15.3.

It would have been hard enough to predict that Vaughn Grissom, the former top infield prospect the Red Sox got for Sale, would become a Los Angeles Angel before Sale would leave the Braves at the time of the trade.

The fact that Sale happens to still be a top-three pitcher in the National League, sports a 2.06 ERA, and could put up 6+ bWAR for the second time in three years only adds insult to injury.