The Chris Sale redemption tour has been put on temporary hold.
The Boston Red Sox ace won't be ready for Opening Day after suffering a stress fracture in his right rib cage, chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom confirmed Wednesday.
Sale told reporters he suffered the injury on Feb. 24 while throwing a live batting practice session at Florida Gulf Coast University that teammate Matt Barnes streamed live on Instagram.
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"(I) felt a little side discomfort, nothing too crazy -- I didn’t think anything of it," Sale said. "Over the next handful of days, not only did it stick around, it kind of got worse."
While the timetable for Sale's recovery is unclear, Bloom said it will be a matter of "weeks," not days, before the left-hander returns.
The injury is a tough setback for Sale, who posted a 3.13 ERA over nine appearances late in the 2021 season after returning from Tommy John surgery and was looking forward to regaining his full form in 2022. The 32-year-old has pitched a total of 50.2 innings (including postseason) since the end of the 2019 season.
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Bloom remains optimistic that Sale can contribute at a high level once the injury heals, however.
"The nice thing about this is it’s really just a matter of time," Bloom said. "Everything else, he was doing great. It’s a bone, it needs to heal, and we have to respect the amount of time it’s going to take."