Chris Sale. (Jim McIsaac/Getty Images)
BOSTON (WBZ-AM) -- Red Sox ace Chris Sale's elite. He's won 17 games three times since 2012, finished in the top-six in the Cy Young voting each of the last six years, and he's been an All-Star all of those seasons as well.
But the Boston ace never made the playoffs in his career before last year, his eighth MLB campaign. Sale started two games against the eventual champion Astros, and lost them both after allowing nine runs in his nine-and-two-thirds innings.
The lefty's off to another great start in 2018, but his manager Alex Cora said Sale has more important things in mind than personal achievements.
"He's not here to put up numbers, he understands there's something bigger," Cora said. "Like I told him in that first meeting in Fort Myers, we look around the room and there were only three guys that had pitched in the World Series, Rick, Joe, and Work ... they're hungry for that, I know that, and he's putting himself in a position, we feel that in the second half he's going to be strong, and going into October, he's going to be where we want him to be. We'll see what happens."
Sale will square off with Jason Hammel tonight in Kansas City at 8:15 p.m.
WBZ NewsRadio 1030's Adam Kaufman (@AdamMKaufman) reports