High-powered matchup pits Braves’ Chris Sale vs. Yankees’ Gerrit Cole

Using Chris Sale on extra rest is working well for the Atlanta Braves.

Sale will be pitching with more rest than usual Saturday when he throws for the first time since July 29 as the Braves visit the New York Yankees.

The teams will face a shorter turnaround than usual after a nearly two-hour rain delay Friday night led to the game ending shortly after midnight.

Atlanta had its season-high eight-game winning streak end when Raisel Iglesias blew the save by yielding two runs in the ninth inning before Tyler Kinley allowed the winning run in the 10th as New York prevailed 3-2.

Austin Riley hit his fifth homer since the All-Star break and Matt Olson tied Philadelphia’s Kyle Schwarber and Colorado’s Hunter Goodman for the NL lead with his 33rd homer for the Braves.

Sale (12-6, 2.08 ERA) is pitching for the first time since averaging 96.3 mph on 48 four-seam fastballs in a 1-0 win over the Mets in the second game of a July 29 doubleheader. He threw six scoreless innings, permitting two hits, walking none and striking out nine.

The 10-time All-Star made that start with five days of rest, and he has made 18 of his 20 starts with at least five days of rest.

On extended rest, Sale is 11-5 with a 1.68 ERA this season, and he heads into Saturday 4-0 with a 2.00 ERA in his past five starts. Sale racked up 20 strikeouts in the past two outings, against the Mets and the San Diego Padres, and he also tossed seven shutout innings versus the Texas Rangers in his current hot streak.

“(Extra rest) is one of the things that has kept him strong and kept his velocity where it’s at,” Braves manager Walt Weiss said earlier this week. “It’s crazy to think about, but at 37 years old, he’s producing some of the highest velocities in his entire career. I think that’s because of some of the adjustments he’s made in his throwing program this offseason and the in-season throwing program. The extra days are a factor, too.”

Sale is 7-9 with a 3.06 ERA in 23 career appearances (20 starts) against the Yankees. He last faced them on June 21, 2024, in New York, when he struck out eight and allowed a run on one hit in five innings during an 8-1 win.

Sale has rarely opposed New York ace Gerrit Cole (5-5, 3.42 ERA). Saturday will mark their third head-to-head matchup, after faceoffs on June 1, 2018, and July 17, 2022. Cole was on the Houston Astros in the first of those games, and Sale was with the Boston Red Sox for both.

In those contests, Sale went 0-2 with an 8.10 ERA, while Cole went 2-0 with a 3.21 ERA.

Cole is attempting to win three straight starts for the first time since returning from Tommy John surgery on May 22. He pitched six scoreless innings in a 3-2 win against the host Chicago White Sox on July 28, then threw 5 2/3 innings of one-run ball in a 2-1 victory over the Chicago Cubs on Sunday.

Cole is 3-2 with a 3.89 ERA in seven career starts against the Braves.

The Yankees will try to maintain their momentum after Ryan McMahon lofted a game-winning sacrifice fly in the 10th to end the series opener. Austin Wells hit an RBI double and Ben Rice added a game-tying single in the ninth as the Yankees won for the second time in 10 extra-inning contests this season.

“We’ve got to figure that out,” McMahon said of the Yankees’ offensive struggles. “We got to get going a little bit more.”

–Field Level Media