How Chris Sale outclassed Josh Donaldson in Tuesday's heavyweight bout

As September approaches it’s now an established fact that the Toronto Blue Jays do not have a lineup to be feared.

Entering Tuesday’s action they ranked 25th in the major leagues in run scoring with 559 tallies – a total they would not add to on the night. A combination of injuries, underperformance and the ravages of Father Time has rendered the Blue Jays an uninspiring offensive group.

However, when opposing pitchers draw Toronto they do have one major obstacle to contend with: Josh Donaldson. Justin Smoak has certainly been no slouch either, but it’s Donaldson who came into Tuesday with both a .297/.420/.736 line in August and an MVP pedigree.

Facing the Blue Jays as a complete experience may not be hard on pitchers, but tangling with Donaldson certainly is. So when Boston Red Sox ace Chris Sale rolled into town it was interesting to see how he would handle the challenge of a true strength vs. strength matchup.

The short answer as that he did so with aplomb, holding him to an 0-for-3, but the long answer is that Sale – and catcher Sandy Leon – schemed and executed an excellent game plan that played out like a three-round MMA fight.

Round 1

Pitches (in order): Changeup, Slider, Changeup

How it looked:

Result: Weak groundout to third base

Gameplan: Offspeed stuff low and away.

Donaldson likes to use torque in his bottom half to turn on pitches, and even though he isn’t strictly a pull hitter, he makes his money on pitches middle-in. That’s why his isolated power by zone looks like this for his career:

So, Sale opted to go away-away-away with the soft stuff and it worked perfectly as Donaldson rolled right over on the ball and sent it to third at a lethargic 65.9 mph.

Round 2

Pitches (in order): Slider (X2), Four-seam Fastball (X2), Changeup, Four-seam Fastball (X2)

How it looked:

Result: Popup to shortstop

Gameplan: Jam Donaldson with fastballs up-and-in

In this at-bat Sale kept the soft stuff away again (pitches 1, 2, and 5) and got a couple strikes out of that, but he was really gunning at Donaldson with the inside fastball that he didn’t see in his first trip to the plate.

Trying to overpower Donaldson up-and-in is a gutsy strategy. But Sale stuck to it, attempting to either blow him away or pop him up with a barrage of heaters. On the seventh pitch of the confrontation, he got the less sexy, but the outcome was equally effective as the Blue Jays star skied one to short.

Round 3

Pitches (in order): Changeup

How it looked:

Result: Groundout to shortstop

Gameplan: Get strike one

Finally, Sale makes a significant mistake here leaving a changeup far higher than he intended. The idea was to steal strike one with a change at the bottom of the zone as Leon set up here:

However, even though this is an error on Sale’s part, it’s a well-conceived one. In the last at-bat, four of the southpaw’s last five pitches were fastballs and he ultimately bested Donaldson with the pitch.

As a result, Donaldson had to keep that heater foremost in his mind when this duel began. When he got the changeup – even in an eminently hittable location – he was out in front of the pitch and hit a harmless groundball for an out.

Whenever we’re talking about a hitter vs. pitcher matchup the mathematical advantage goes to the pitcher. That’s the way baseball is structured. Even so, it’s not every night that we see a pitcher able to dominate one of the best hitters in the game in the midst of perhaps his career’s best month with equal parts cagey tactics and tight execution.

On Tuesday night, that’s precisely what Chris Sale did.

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