ATLANTA — Chris Sale has a fractured left rib cage and is out indefinitely, a serious blow to the recently resurgent Atlanta Braves’ chances of reeling in teams ahead of them in the NL East and wild-card standings.
Sale, the 2024 National League Cy Young Award winner, was injured making a diving defensive play in the ninth inning Wednesday against the New York Mets. He dove for a Juan Soto grounder between the mound and first base and made the stop while landing on the left side of his chest.
The Braves placed him on the 15-day injured list and recalled left-hander Austin Cox, a journeyman reliever.
Sale, 36, is 5-4 with a 2.52 ERA. In his past 10 starts, he has been one of the top two or three pitchers in baseball, going 5-2 with a 1.23 ERA while striking out 82 with 19 walks in 66 innings during that torrid stretch.
The Braves won’t have a timeline for Sale’s return and will wait until symptoms diminish before estimating when he’ll be back. It likely will be a significant period, given the nature of the injury, perhaps magnified by his age, his slender physique and the amount of torque that the 6-foot-6 sidearming lefty produces in his delivery.
Since losing 14 of 17 games to fall 15 games out of first place in the NL East, the Braves have won seven of 10 games while posting a 3.13 ERA that featured starters going deep in games, none more than Sale.
With Sale out, the Braves’ rotation still features two ace-caliber pitchers in Spencer Schwellenbach and Spencer Strider, who’s had back-to-back strong starts as he regains form following a year-long recovery from elbow surgery and a month sidelined by a hamstring strain after his season debut.
The rest of the rotation includes Grant Holmes, Bryce Elder and, for now, ascendant prospect Didier Fuentes, who became the youngest player in the majors this season when he made his MLB debut Friday at Miami just three days after turning 20. He gave up six hits, four runs and a walk with three strikeouts in five innings.
On the play when Sale got hurt, he dove to make the stop, then got to his knees and threw to first for the first out of the inning. He stayed in and struck out Pete Alonso before giving up a bloop single and coming out of the game just one out shy of a shutout, which would’ve been his first complete game since 2019.
Sale threw 116 pitches in that game — one shy of the MLB season-high for any pitcher — and didn’t say anything about the injury or soreness afterward, but was sent for tests after the soreness lingered.
Sale is in the second year of a contract with the Braves that includes an $18 million club option for 2026.
After making only 31 starts in his last four injury-plagued seasons with Boston, the Red Sox traded Sale to the Braves in December 2023 and he rebounded with one of the best seasons of his career to win his first Cy Young Award and the NL Triple Crown, going 18-3 with a majors-best 2.38 ERA and leading the NL in strikeouts with 225 in 177 2/3 innings.
Sale stayed healthy last season until back spasms forced him to miss his final regular-season start and also kept him off the postseason roster for the wild-card series at San Diego, where the Braves were swept in two games.
This is his first injury in 2025, but it’s a big one for the Braves and the veteran bell cow of their starting rotation.
(Photo: Dale Zanine / Imagn Images)