Red Sox pitcher Sale undergoes wrist surgery

“We need to dispatch some people to go find whoever has a Chris Sale voodoo doll and then recover it,” Boston Red Sox Chief Baseball Officer (CBO) Chaim Bloom said on Wednesday, delivering news that the team’s left-handed pitcher Chris Sale had another fracture. Sale broke his right wrist during a bicycle incident on his way to get lunch on Sunday. As he went through surgery on Tuesday, he is unlikely to return to the field this season.

Sale visited orthopedic hospitals more often than his home stadium Fenway Park this year. During the lockout, he felt pain in his chest during live pitching practice in February and was diagnosed with a stress fracture of a rib. His name was not on the opening entry list due to this injury.

Sale who returned to the field for an away game against the Tampa Bay Rays on July 13 proved how good of a pitcher he is as long as he is healthy by allowing only three hits and no run and striking out five in five innings. He announced that there would be no more fractures after the game ended.

However, Sale broke his left pinkie five days later as he was struck by the ball hit by Aaron Hicks, the sixth batter of the New York Yankees, in the bottom of the first inning of an away game in New York. Then, he broke his right wrist by falling off a bicycle while he was recovering from the injury and preparing for a return.

“It's been such a run of bad luck for him and obviously for us,” said CBO Bloom. “At least it is a good thing that he didn’t injure the broken pinkie again during the bicycle accident.”


Bo-Mi Im bom@donga.com