Braves Chris Sale Speaks Up on Dynamic with Brian Snitker, Mutual Respect

This week saw one of the more special nights of Chris Sale's time with the Atlanta Braves. On Wednesday night, he pitched 8 2/3 innings and came within a strike of a complete game shutout. It was the deepest he had pitched into a game since he underwent Tommy John surgery in 2020.

Manager Brian Snitker allowed Sale to go 116 pitches before taking the ball from his hand. The way the ninth inning went down was strategized by the two together.

"He and I have this agreement where he's gonna let me get it, but I have to earn it at the same time," Sale told 680 The Fan's Cellini & Dimino on Thursday. "If a runner gets on, then he's coming to get me. As long as I get the first guy, he's gonna let me get the second guy. If I get the second guy, he's gonna give me the third. But if any other those guys gets on, he's gotta come get me."

Sale emphasized the mutal respect it takes between the two to have that type of dynamic, and he was grateful for getting the chance to go out there and try to go the distance.

"That's a pretty cool situation to be in; someone that I have a lot of respect for, and he obviously respects me," he said. "And just to let me have that opportunity in a day and age where that magic number of 100 pitches, you start creeping up, getting close to that or even get over that. I appreciate him giving me a chance to go out and try to finish that game."

Snitker said after Wednesday's game that if anyone had the right to out there, it was Sale.

"I was thinking, Well, you've earned that, right?"

That proper amount of push and pull between the two created yet another icnoic during the Chris Sale era of Braves bsaeball. He's already taken home a Cy Young Award, but those who experienced this time will remember that night just as well.

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