{"id":659853,"date":"2026-04-03T00:30:20","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T00:30:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/659853\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T00:30:20","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T00:30:20","slug":"future-hall-of-famer-making-a-case-for-ill-braves-pitcher-chris-sale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/659853\/","title":{"rendered":"Future Hall of Famer?: Making a case for ill Braves pitcher Chris Sale"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Few baseball elitists would liken <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/us\/mlb\/atlanta-braves\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Atlanta Braves<\/a> pitcher Chris Sale to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/us\/mlb\/los-angeles-dodgers\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Los Angeles Dodgers<\/a> icon Sandy Koufax.<\/p>\n<p>Yet.<\/p>\n<p>A 16-year veteran, Sale has mostly proved dominant.<\/p>\n<p>Koufax remains legendary.<\/p>\n<p>But look at the <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/podoffame\/status\/2039684835900334531?s=20\" rel=\"nofollow\">two left-handers&#8217; career statistics<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>They remain similar.<\/p>\n<p>So much so, Sale should be considered a future first- or second-year ballot Hall of Famer.<\/p>\n<p>Chris Sale producing Sandy Koufax-like stats<\/p>\n<p>Appearing in his 314th MLB game despite being slowed by illness, Sale (2-0) yielded one run on one hit over six innings Wednesday, propelling the <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/mlb\/boxscore\/_\/gameId\/401814764\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Braves to a 5-1 win over the Athletics<\/a> at Truist Park.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He was sick as a dog,&#8221; Braves manager Walt Weiss said, as <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.msn.com\/en-us\/sports\/mlb\/braves-chris-sale-shakes-off-illness-dominates-athletics\/ar-AA1ZWoJe?ocid=BingNewsSerp\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">reported by ESPN<\/a>. &#8220;We didn&#8217;t even know if he was going to be able to make that start. I was hoping to get three innings out of him. In the best-case scenario, maybe four.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Pitching with less velocity than normal, Sale provided six and only allowed a home run by A\u2019s slugger Shea Langeliers, a shot that barely cleared the left-field wall.<\/p>\n<p>Sale didn\u2019t mention his illness during a post-game press conference.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You&#8217;re not going to have your best stuff every time,&#8221; said Sale, who turned 37 years old earlier in the week.<\/p>\n<p>His 314th start was significant in that it matched Koufax\u2019s Hall of Fame total. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>When analyzing his career against Koufax\u2019s, Sale earned better marks in a few interesting categories, including WAR (57.9-48.9), strikeouts (2,588-2,396) and All-Star Game appearances (9-7).<\/p>\n<p>Koufax topped Sale in ERA titles (5-1), World Series MVPs (2-0) and Cy Young awards (3-1).<\/p>\n<p>Most purists wouldn\u2019t compare Sale\u2019s career to Koufax\u2019s.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps they should.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Few baseball elitists would liken Atlanta Braves pitcher Chris Sale to Los Angeles Dodgers icon Sandy Koufax. Yet.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":657585,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2394],"tags":[191,46,4166,5,192,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-659853","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-atlanta-braves","8":"tag-atlanta","9":"tag-atlanta-braves","10":"tag-atlantabraves","11":"tag-baseball","12":"tag-braves","13":"tag-mlb"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116337955876504968","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=659853"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659853\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/657585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=659853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=659853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=659853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}