Sale, who was named Boston's starter for Game 1 of the playoffs, per Jason Mastrodonato of the Boston Herald, experienced a drop in four-seam fastball velocity in Wednesday's start, per BrooksBaseball.net. The left-hander averaged 90.3 mph, down from a season average of 96 mph over the entire season.
It's notable that Sale's fastball velocity has diminished in each start since coming off the disabled list earlier this month, as his workload increased from one inning to three to 3.1 to 4.2 on Wednesday. Sale downplayed the drop, telling Mastrodonato, "I saw some things last week and even tonight, just not really driving off my lower half and really create that torque I have in the past. We've got extended time now to kind of figure out what we need to do and we'll go from there." The good news is that the shoulder is not bothering Sale, and there's time to get his mechanics right before the start of the postseason.