The Internet suggests that ‘pinky’, not ‘pinkie’ is the more common American usage, and a break takes 6-8 weeks to heal, which pretty much ends Sale’s season assuming he would need to throw for a few weeks before returning to action, although I suppose one could hope that he’d be available for the playoffs. Boston is now 2 games out of the last WildCard, and it will be harder to make that up without Sale.

No Sale!

Curt Schilling would just cut it off himself then make the first start after the ASG.

From 2019 through 2022, Sale has been paid $105,000,000 and has given the Red Sox 3.5 WAR, with 2 more years to go on his contract.

The following statements can all be true at once, and reflect my feelings after the last two weeks as a Red Sox fan:

1) Even if you are a .500 team, the expanded playoffs mean you'll likely be "in it" going into even mid-September. And it is also generally true that baseball in a playoff of short series, can be a funny game, so there may be value in playing to "make the tournament".

2) After a stretch against (largely) a bunch of tin cans, when Boston went 32-12 to turn a 10-19 start into a 42-31 record and a top wild card position, the last 14 games have revealed what they really are: A pretty average team, able to beat up on weak teams, but get beat up against the best teams. They had a 14-game stretch which all of us were circling for two months as the "big moment": a seven-game homestand against Tampa and NYY, then a 7-game road trip against the same two teams. The result? 4-10, out of the playoffs as of the All-Star break, and now Chris Sale has a broken finger that pretty much has him out the rest of the year.

3) Talk radio and the Boston Globe today went into "sell at the deadline" mode, and I basically agree with that, except you have to ask yourself: Sell who? And for what return?

What players are part of the 2024 team, when they should be very good, and look very different than they do today?

Not Verdugo, Bradley, Hernandez, or Cordero - none of whom would return a single prospect worth getting.
Not Dalbec, Arroyo, Refsnyder, or Pawlecki - none of whom would return a single prospect worth getting.
The only five position players who would get you anything at the deadline would be:

Devers, who they aren't trading.
Story, who they just signed, and is going nowhere.
Vazquez, but they don't have another catcher for 2023 ready, so they'll want to keep him around another year.
Bogaerts, who if they don't think he is re-signing, would fetch a return.
JD Martinez, who to me is the most logical position player to trade to a team in need of a legit right-handed bat.

In terms of pitchers:
Not the young guys - so Bello, Winckowski, Seabold, Crawford, Houck, and Whitlock are off limits.
Sale is hurt and expensive, so he's going nowhere.
Pivetta has turned into a pumpkin very quickly, but is worth more to the Red Sox than to anybody else,and is going nowhere.
Most of the bullpen would fetch little-to-nothing (and before you point to Workman in 2020, he looked a lot better than most of the guys they'd be willing to trade right now, like Brasier, Sawamura, Diekmann, Strahm, Danish, etc.)

So I think there are five pitchers they could trade, and get something for:
- Austin Davis is worth more now than he was when they traded for him in 2021.
- John Schreiber has been awesome, and his value will probably never be higher than it is right now.
- Rich Hill, with his rested arm, is a starter for a team that needs an average pitcher to give them 8-10 starts the rest of the year.
- Michael Wacha has been awesome when healthy. For a team looking for a boost, he would definitely be worth a flyer when he comes back.
- Eovaldi is pretty clearly the best trade chit for somebody looking for an impact starting pitcher. In fact, he's probably the best trade asset they have (unless Xander is available).

Look, Martinez, Eovaldi and Xander aren't going to be on this team in 2023, so unless you're going for it, trade them.

And as for the rotation, with Sale out, and Eovaldi traded, 2023 gets underway right now. Frankly, I want to see the young guys pitching to figure out who is a part of the 2023 rotation. I'd say, let Bello, Winckowski, Crawford, Seabold, and Chris Murphy start, and see what we've got.

And for those who are like, "Hey, that was a tough stretch, the season will get easier going forward!", not so much. 52 of their final 69 games are against teams with winning records. And their record this year against teams with a winning record (as of tonight)? 28-31.

a break takes 6-8 weeks to heal, which pretty much ends Sale’s season assuming he would need to throw for a few weeks before returning to action, although I suppose one could hope that he’d be available for the playoffs.

The real question is whether he'll be back in time to wreck another minor league clubhouse before the end of the season.

Same thing happened to my wife when she was 12 playing softball. She popped her pinky back in and continued pitching. Not gonna lie, her pinky is still gross to look at #$&@$ years later.

What I'm saying is, Chris Sale is more childish than a 12 year old girl.

Curt Schilling would just cut it off himself then make the first start after the ASG.

Different sport, but Ronnie Lott of the San Francisco 49ers literally did that.

Well, presumably he had a surgeon cut it off for him.

Same thing happened to my wife when she was 12 playing softball. She popped her pinky back in and continued pitching. Not gonna lie, her pinky is still gross to look at #$&@$ years later.

What I'm saying is, Chris Sale is more childish than a 12 year old girl.

Are you sure that your [future] wife did not have a dislocation, rather than a fracture? There is a big difference.

Given how successful Tommy John surgery has been, I’m a bit surprised no one else has tried the Mordecai Brown procedure.

Curt Schilling would just cut it off himself then make the first start after the ASG.

Max Scherzer would have chewed it off on the mound and stayed in the game.

It appears that Sale signed the five-year extension prior to the 2019 season. If my math is correct, he has thrown less than 200 innings in the three years since then; and it looks like his 2022 statline is closed.

Also, there was a pandemic in the interim, which is definitely his fault.

#12 Yes. But on the flip side this injury shows that the Red Sox rushed his return. Making everything (including the pandemic) the Red Sox fault (by the logic of reasons)

i once broke my pinky badly in a similar way (reaching up to try to catch a football that was overthrown).

man i have had my share of injuries, but #### that one in particular. they had to insert two pins to hold my pinky together as it healed so I basically couldn't move it for six weeks, and when the pins came out it was stiffer than morning wood, took another two months of physical therapy (that hurt like a mother) until the finger was nimble again. At the end of the day it healed up just fine but it richly sucked.

Sale had finger surgery:

Chris Sale “underwent an open reduction and internal fixation of a left fifth finger proximal phalanx fracture” today. While the timeline isn’t crystal clear at the moment, the team believes it’s still possible for Sale to return later this year.

That sounds somewhat more complex than just putting a splint on it, but maybe that’s just to pad the bill? Pretty iffy about being back in time to make any real difference, but no one is suggesting any long-term problem, so there’s that.

Chris Sale is more childish than a 12 year old girl.

Certainly less emotionally mature ... probably a bigger ...

and it's right there I'm reminded how out of touch I am. I want to say "Justin Bieber fan" but he had his first hit in 2010, the year current 12-yo girls were born. Presumably there's somebody else now ... or is it all TikTok 15 seconds of fame now? Regardless, consider Mr Sale insulted in an hilarious way.

The Red Sox might actually be the worst team in the AL East at this point. They have a losing record against every other team in the AL East (12-26), have not won any series at all against NYY/TB/TOR/BAL, and the Orioles are only 1.5 back.

Those first 7 games after the break in Toronto/Cleveland might be enough to break their season. Management might pull the chute on the season if they got 2-5 or 1-6, as those are teams they are competing against for the wild card spots.

The Red Sox might actually be the worst team in the AL East at this point.

The voyage was doomed from the start.