Chris Sale started the seventh inning slowly, by the standards to come. The Red Sox ace threw two sliders to Baltimore Orioles infielder Hanser Alberto, who fouled them off. Then, on the the third pitch of the at-bat, Sale fired a 92-mph four-seam fastball.
Swing and a miss. Strike three.
His next three pitches, to outfielder Dwight Smith Jr., were all strikes swinging, too. Sale’s seventh pitch of the inning, a 93-mph fastball, broke the pattern. It was merely a strike looking. Orioles infielder Steve Wilkerson swung and failed to connect with either of the final two fastballs, so he walked back to the dugout as Sale’s third strikeout victim of the inning.