Red Sox’s Chris Sale goes berserk in clubhouse following rehab outing

Boston Red Sox pitcher Chris Sale had a meltdown in the clubhouse Wednesday night following a rough outing in a minor-league rehab assignment.

Sale was pitching for the Triple-A Worcester Red Sox against the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders, an affiliate of the New York Yankees. He struck out five and walked five in 3 2/3 innings, but after walking a batter with the bases loaded, he was removed from the game.

A video posted to social media showed Sale smashing a television.

He said after the game he was just frustrated.

“It was all just frustration. I’ve gone months without walking five guys… Nothing’s wrong, I just have some things that I have to clean up,” Sale said, via Boston 25 News.

“I know exactly what I have to do. I knew exactly what I had to do and that’s why I got so frustrated. I had to fix this, and I didn’t fix it… That’s where that big time frustration comes out of.”

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Sale has been working his way back from a stress fracture in his rib cage he suffered in February. He missed the entire 2020 season due to Tommy John and only pitched in nine games in 2021.

Red Sox chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom reacted to Sale’s behavior Thursday in an interview with WEEI 93.7 in Boston.

“I did see the video. I have not talked to anybody, including Chris, about that, but I did see the video. Look, I’m not going to sit here and condone property damage, but he is a competitor. That’s who he is. There are plenty of guys, including somebody we all love who is going into Cooperstown later this month who has been caught on tape doing stuff like that when they’re frustrated during a ballgame. It happens, it probably happens more than people think and with guys that you might never suspect,” Bloom said on “The Greg Hill Show.”

“So, it’s never something that we condone, but there’s a lot of passion in this game and when you have someone who holds himself to as high a standard as Chris does and who cares as much as he does, sometimes that passion is going to express itself in different ways.”