Atlanta Brave starting pitcher Chris S turned 35 years old at the start of the Season including this year he has been in the league for parts of 14 years for a pitcher like s it makes sense to expect that he wouldn't be very good this year and would probably be a backend starter whose job is to eat Innings on a non-competitive team however that is far from the case what's actually going on this season is that he's undeniably the a starter on a team that's firmly in the National League playoff race the Braves are 63 and 56 overall but 15 and seven when Chris Sail starts the game sale was a key piece of the Red Sox team that won 108 games in the regular season and coasted their way to a World Series championship in 2018 after that dominant run sail and the Red Sox fell off in 2019 the team won just 84 games and Chris Sale had what was probably the worst season of his career in 25 starts in August he hit the injur list with with inflammation in his pitching elbow he wouldn't pitch another game that season and eventually had to get Tommy John surgery he missed the entire 2020 season and only started nine games in 2021 in that small sample he did Pitch very well with a 3.16 ra and 28.4% strikeout rate going into the 2022 season s was going to be 33 years old and was in year three of a 5-year deal he fractured his rib cage in spring training came back on July 12th and pitched five scoreless innings in Tampa Bay then against the Yankees on the 17th he lasted just five batters before the sixth batter who was Aaron Hicks hit a 106.7 mph line drive right back at sail and broke his finger while rehabbing that finger injury he got in a bike accident and broke his wrist which ended his 2022 season after just 5 and 2/3 Innings pitched for the first time in a couple of Seasons s was fresh and ready to pitch at the start of the season in 2023 through his first 11 starts of the Season it was definitely a mixed back his 4.58 ER wasn't anything special but he was limiting hard contact and did have a strikeout rate of nearly 30% in five of his 11 starts he only allowed one run but would once again get hurt this time with a stress reaction in his shoulder he came back in August and stayed healthy through the end of the season over for all he posted a 4.30 ER and a 1.13 whip the Red Sox traded him to the Braves in December where he promptly signed a 2-year contract with them Chris S has stayed perfectly healthy this season for the first time since 2018 and he's been almost as good s has arguably been the very best starting pitcher in Major League Baseball and leads in many different stat categories he's kept the same pitch Arsenal as he did with the Red Sox his four-seam fast ball has played way better this year than last and he's throwing it close to 95 mph on average this is getting him more swing and misses on the pitch as well as worse contact but his slider is definitely his best pitch he throws it more than 40% of the time and whenever batters put it in play the average exit velocity barely cracks 80 m per hour and it's rare to be put in play at all the pitch gets a swing and Miss rate of 42 6% which is easily the highest on a pitch for him since that legendary 2018 season Chris S has started 22 games in the 2024 MLB season he averages more than six Innings per start which not many pitchers do he's second in ER first in FIP first in K per nine fifth in Whip and fourth in home runs per nine innings he's been close to unhitable for the Braves this season and is earning every penny of that contract that I mentioned earlier most importantly is that he's staying healthy and is able to go every fifth day he might be 35 years old but the way things are going right now he might be able to pitch at a high level for a lot longer than we all expected definitely like And subscribe if you haven't yet and thanks for watching this video