Sale tops 100 mph, throws complete game as Braves sweep Dodgers - ESPN

ATLANTA — Chris Sale finished Thursday's eighth inning with 97 pitches, then walked the length of his dugout, found Braves manager Walt Weiss and left no doubt.

«This is mine,» Sale told him.

Twelve pitches later, Sale finished what he started, preserving Atlanta's 1-0 lead to clinch a sweep of the reigning champion Los Angeles Dodgers and prove again that, at 37, he's still as good as ever.

Sale threw his two fastest pitches since 2018, both to Shohei Ohtani, and twirled his first complete game since 2019. His ERA — two years after earning his first Cy Young Award — is 2.06, trailing only Jacob Misiorowski for the major league lead. Sale has now gone 21 consecutive starts without giving up more than three runs.

«You can make an argument that, as great a career as he's having, he's as good now as he's ever been,» Weiss said. «It's mind-boggling.»

The last time Sale reached triple digits with his fastball was July 6, 2018, when he was a 29-year-old on a World Series-bound Boston Red Sox team and had yet to undergo Tommy John surgery. He did it again in the top of the third Thursday, throwing a 100.1 mph fastball that Ohtani fouled off. Two innings later, Sale threw a 99.6 mph fastball well above the strike zone — his second-fastest pitch since that 2018 season — and Ohtani swung through it for a strikeout.

«Call it what it is — that guy, he's doing things no one's ever seen,» Sale said of Ohtani. «Tit for tat, he's probably the best I've ever seen. When you're facing the best, you got to bring your best. Tonight it worked out.»

Sale scattered five hits, walked none and collected 11 strikeouts. Only one Dodger was in scoring position. At 37 years, 150 days old, Sale became the oldest pitcher with a 10-strikeout, no-walk