The argument around Walt Weiss’s decision to use Chris Sale out of the bullpen in Game 3 of the Wild Card Series comes down to one simple split: either it was a costly mistake, or it was a reasonable move that baseball’s cruel timing turned into a problem.
On one side, the criticism is blunt. A four-run lead late should have been enough to leave Sale alone, preserve him for the next round, and avoid burning four outs from an ace who could have mattered later.
In that view, Weiss only needed four pitches to get Bryce Harper to end the eighth, and that should have been the end of it. Instead, Sale was essentially removed from the conversation for anything beyond another emergency relief spot in a possible NLDS Game 5.
The other side sees it differently. Sale was already lined up to be available in relief that day, and if the game had been tighter - a one- or two-run contest - few people would have complained.
He is an ace, but he also has a long medical history, and if his body was ready to go that day, the thinking goes, Atlanta should have taken advantage of it while the margin allowed. Sale is 37, and it’s entirely possible everyone involved expected him to be fine for NLDS Game 2, treating the Wild Card Game as a throw day.
In that scenario, the issue wasn’t the plan - it was that his body simply didn’t cooperate by the day before NLDS Game 2.
That’s the core of the debate. Baseball leaves plenty of room for both sides to sound right, which is part of what makes this one linger. And then, because baseball has a way of mocking certainty, the Braves won Game 2 against the Dodgers without Sale and lost Game 3 with him.
The pitcher at the center of the whole mess, though, wasn’t Sale. It was Yoshinobu Yamamoto, the arm who once polished off a championship.
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