August 7, 2024; Atlanta, GA, USA; Atlanta Braves starting pitcher Chris Sale (51) pitches to the Milwaukee Brewers during the first inning at Truist Park. Mandatory Credit: Brett Davis-USA TODAY Sports The Atlanta Braves will take on the San Francisco Giants in a high-stakes four-game road series on Monday night, giving Chris Sale a chance to try to replicate a stellar performance on his 10th anniversary.
The Braves (61-56) and Giants (61-59) start this week 1 1/2 games apart in the National League’s crowded wild-card race. San Francisco won two of three games at Georgia last month to move up from Atlanta.
Sale (13-3, 2.75 ERA) gave the Braves their only win in the series on July 6, a 3-1 victory. runs, two runs, nine strikeouts.
It wasn’t nearly as impressive as his only career visit to San Francisco on Aug. 12, 2014, when the left-hander shut out the Giants on four hits and struck out 12 in eight innings, finishing with 10. Won the game 3-2.
The longtime American League pitcher has faced the Giants just once since then and has a 2-0 career record with a 1.80 ERA in three starts in the series opener against San Francisco.
Sale’s opposing pitcher in the 2014 game was Ryan Vogelsong, who retired after the 2016 season.
On Monday, Sale will take part in a matchup of multiple Cy Young Award candidates. Sale has finished in the top six of the voting seven times, while his counterpart, Giants lefty Blake Snell (2-3, 4.31 ERA), has won twice (2018 and 2023).
Snell was coming off a two-game winning streak, including a no-hitter against the Cincinnati Reds on August 2, after going winless in his first 10 starts of the season. The 31-year-old did not participate in the previous series in Atlanta.
He has never beaten the Braves in three career starts, with a 4.20 ERA and an 0-2 record.
Over the course of their careers, with Snell a two-ERA winner and Sale an eight-time All-Star, the two pitchers have faced off only once. The incident occurred on May 13, 2017, while Sale was pitching for the Boston Red Sox and Snell was pitching for the Tampa Bay Rays.
Sale struck out 12 Tampa Bay Rays players in a 6-3 victory over seven innings. Snell took the loss, allowing six runs in 5 2/3 innings.
The Braves and Giants will meet for the first time since making trades at last month’s deadline. Atlanta traded Jorge Soler and Luke Jackson for injured Tyler Mazek and minor league infielder Sabine Ceballos.
Soler hit two homers and drove in four runs on Sunday against the Colorado Rockies, but the Braves lost for the seventh time in their last eight games.
Another Warriors player, Matt Olson, who will celebrate his return to the Bay Area after spending six seasons with the Oakland Athletics, said his team is still competitive.
“We haven’t gotten hot yet,” he said in Colorado, where the Warriors lost two of three games last weekend. “You never know when it’s going to happen. We show up every day with the mentality that it’s going to start today. We’ll see if we can get hot at the right time.”
The Giants, meanwhile, have won four of their past five games. They will have to shake off their only loss, a 5-4 loss to the Detroit Tigers on Sunday.
“It’s the same in all games; we’re trying to win as many games as we can right now,” Giants coach Bob Melvin said of the importance of the Braves series.
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