Chris Sale will take the ball for the Braves in the series finale against San Francisco on Sunday, June 28, after getting a couple of days of extra rest. The left-hander is set for the 4:05 p.m. ET first pitch at Oracle Park in San Francisco, with Robbie Ray starting for the Giants.
The move gives Atlanta a fresh Sale at a point when every inning matters. He enters at 8-5 with a 2.14 ERA, and the Braves are counting on him to help secure a rubber match before they head home. The matchup also puts Sale back in the kind of spot he has handled well all year, a road start with the game on the line.
The extra rest came after the Braves shuffled their rotation and used Reynaldo López and Bryce Elder in Games 1 and 2. That left Sale lined up for the finale, where the timing works for the club and for the pitcher. It also sets up another look at Robbie Ray, who already saw the Braves last week in the resumption of the rain-suspended series opener, when he worked 6.1 innings of two-run ball, and again in his last start against the Athletics, when he threw eight innings with one unearned run, four walks and six strikeouts.
Sale has been effective, but the Braves offense has not always given him room to breathe. In each of his last three outings, he has kept the offense within striking distance, only to see the lineup leave him with little support. That has made his starts feel tighter than the numbers suggest, even as his ERA stays among the best in the league.
Now the burden shifts to whether Atlanta can turn that into something more in the rubber match. Sale has done enough to keep the club in games; Sunday asks whether the Braves can finally reward him with a series win before they return to Atlanta.
