AJ Smith-Shawver also pitched four innings. They weren’t scoreless.
Chris Sale made his final start of spring training here in 2025 and the good news is that he made it through just fine and appears to be ready to go for the Atlanta Braves on Opening Day in six days time.
Sale pitched four innings today, with each of them being of the scoreless variety. He racked up a pair of strikeouts in a sharp-looking first inning, where his only blemish in that frame was giving up a single to Yandy Díaz. Sale then proceeded to retire the next six batters he saw until he walked Taylor Walls with one out in the third inning. The Rays wouldn’t get a runner past first in that frame, as Sale got a ground out that wiped out Walls at second and then got Díaz to pop out to end the inning.
The fourth inning was the toughest for Sale, as he ended up giving up a couple of singles to Brandon Lowe and Josh Lowe but he got out of the inning with a pair of strikeouts and once that frame was done, Chris Sale was done for the day. Ultimately he finished with four innings pitched, three hits allowed, one walk allowed and five strikeouts on the day. To put it mildly, it’s what you want to see with the regular season right around the corner.
Something else that you can file into the “Things you like to see” folder included AJ Smith-Shawver being in action today as well. He had been expected to pitch on Saturday but since this is spring training we’re talking about, you can compare it to the small print on a flyer for a professional wrestling show: “Card subject to change.” As such, AJSS had himself an interesting four innings where he got to deal with a mix of big league Rays players and their organizational depth.
A one-out walk and a single in the fifth inning was eventually turned into a sacrifice fly from Yandy Díaz that gave them the first run of the game. Smith-Shawver got out of the rest of the frame unscathed ad then pitched a scoreless inning in the sixth. The seventh inning saw the Rays bring in a bunch of new faces but this was also the second time where a walk ended up coming back to bite him. He walked José Caballero to start the seventh and then saw Caballero steal both second and third on him before Bob Seymour came through with an RBI single to make it 2-0 Tampa Bay at that time.
Smith-Shawver ended his day with another run allowed but this time it was of the unearned variety. Another leadoff single ended up getting him in trouble and the trouble was compounded when Drake Baldwin made a throwing error trying to catch Angel Mateo stealing. A sacrifice fly from Tristan Peters brought Mateo home and just like that, it was 3-0 Rays at that point. Smith-Shawver finished the inning to make it another four innings for projected Braves starters on the day. While his outing was nowhere near as dominant as Sale’s performance, it was still fine to see him out there for four innings and if the Braves do decide to go with a six-man rotation in the infancy of the season, he’s certainly in the conversation for it.
As far as the plate action for the Braves goes today, things were pretty quiet for the familiar faces that we expect to see. Jurickson Profar led off the game with a hit, Michael Harris II went 1-for-3 and Orlando Arcia blooped one into right for his only hit of the day. Other than that, the regulars were pretty quiet and we didn’t see things pop off at the plate for the Braves until the ninth inning. That was when they exploded for seven runs off of Pete Fairbanks and Sean Hunley. Nick Allen delivered a sacrifice fly to get the scoring started, Cody Milligan hit a two-out triple to put Atlanta ahead 6-3 and then Drew Compton hit a double to bring us to our final score of 7-3.
For the Braves, though, the main story was the performance of the first two pitchers who took the mound for them. Chris Sale looked ready but AJ Smith-Shawver had a bit of a rough go of it. Both pitchers are putting their pencils down as far as the test of spring training goes, as the regular season awaits both of them. Atlanta’s Opening Day starter certainly looks ready to go.