MLB News

The Boston Red Sox are going for it all and they are following a model their general manager knows well. Pitching, pitching and more pitching.

The Red Sox made baseball’s ongoing meetings a bit more spicy on Tuesday when they dealt some serious prospects to the Chicago White Sox for Chris Sale. Consider this a change of Sox for Sale and a warning to the American League East.

“I think it’s a situation where if you have a chance to win you go for every opportunity you can.” Red Sox general manager Dave Dombrowski said at a news conference at National Harbor, Maryland. “Any time you can make the playoffs, you go for it.”

Sale, 27, has been All-Star five straight seasons. In 2016 he was 17-10 with 233 strikeouts in 226⅔ innings pitched.

He joins a brilliant rotation that includes this year’s Cy Young winner Rick Porcello, past winner David Price and All-Star knuckleballer Steven Wright.

This is very much the way Dombrowski worked when he was with the Detroit Tigers, where Porcello was on a staff with Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer. That club had four straight playoff seasons (2011-14) and a trip to the World Series in 2012. Now the Red Sox’ staff will have a rotation featuring three pitchers with a combined nine finishes among the top six for the Cy Young Award, including the 2016 winner in Porcello and the fifth-place finisher in Sale.

You’re a fan of the New York Yankees? They don’t seem to spend anymore and they don’t make deals like this. In fact, they’re the team that traded pitching — Aroldis Chapman to the Chicago Cubs, Andrew Miller to the Cleveland Indians — and then got to watch them in the World Series.
 
 
Post By: Larry Weisman, a longtime sportswriter for USA TODAY, blogs for Twistity.com. Follow him on Twitter @MrLarryWeisman