Stepping on the mound at Fenway for the first time since his departure brought all those moments back.
“It’s like walking into your childhood home,” Sale said. “You just have a lot of memories that you’ve built. A lot of relationships that you still have and appreciate.”
He was welcomed warmly before he took the mound, but he told himself, “The ceremony stops at Pitch 1.”
Sale’s challenge was flipping the switch on a night when nostalgia could have overwhelmed.
“You just try to push all those to the wayside and do your job,” he said, “and that’s go out there and try to win a ball game.”
The Sox’s challenge was trying not to be overwhelmed by Sale — which proved impossible. He gave Atlanta seven innings of one-run ball, striking out eight while giving up just five hits.
He buzzed through the Sox lineup essentially the same way he did a year ago in Atlanta, when he faced the Sox and threw six scoreless innings with 10 Ks. The only damage the Sox could muster off Sale was a leadoff solo homer by Rob Refsnyder in the seventh.
“We knew what we were getting ourselves into facing Chris tonight, and he looked really, really good,” Refsnyder said.
Sox ace Garrett Crochet knew too. He matched Sale’s seven innings and eight strikeouts, but gave up back-to-back homers to Matt Olson and Sean Murphy in the second that gave Sale more than enough room to breathe.
“From my side, I know that I’ve got to have my best stuff that day,” Crochet said. “If I don’t, I’ve got to make something work. Luckily, besides the two homers, I felt like I had my best stuff. Was executing all night long. Felt really good.”
Crochet struck out the side in the first on 11 pitches, eight fastballs. But he missed with a four-seamer to Olson, who lifted it into the first row of the Monster seats for his eighth homer of the season. Then he fed another four-seamer to Murphy, who sent it two rows deeper.
“I think I made the pitches that I wanted to,” Crochet said. “Was going up and in to Murphy and got there. Tried to go down and away to Olson but at the same time, just trying to throw it by him. I thought that it was an effective miss. He just made an effective swing.”
The Sox didn’t help themselves on the base paths. Three innings ended with base-running mistakes. In the third inning, Rafael Devers got caught trying to steal second. Jarren Duran got caught in another pickle in the sixth. In the seventh, Nick Sogard got thrown out at second trying to stretch a Wall-ball single into a double.
The Sox bullpen unraveled in the ninth. Liam Hendriks walked Marcell Ozuna to lead off the inning. After striking out Olson and getting Murphy to ground out, he walked Ozzie Albies. Cora called on Brennan Bernardino to get the Sox out of the jam, but Bernardino walked Michael Harris II on four pitches to load the bases — and then walked Stuart Fairchild to force in a run.
Bernardino’s night ended when he walked Nick Allen to give the Braves a 4-1 lead. He’s the sixth Red Sox pitcher ever to face at least three batters and walk every one of them. The last to do it was Hirokazu Sawamura in 2021.
Those runs mattered when a Trevor Story singled home a run in the ninth, but Wilyer Abreu flew out to end it.
The margin for error was slim facing the reigning Triple Crown winner, but with the Sox also in the middle of losing four straight and five of seven, it was that much thinner.
“It’s frustrating,” said Sox manager Alex Cora. “When you go through weeks like this, you don’t have to push the envelope, right? It’s the other way around. We have to slow it down as a team and I don’t think we did that today.”
Julian Benbow can be reached at julian.benbow@globe.com.
