Braves starter Chris Sale is almost certainly going to win the NL Cy Young Award today and deservedly so. Sale won the NL’s pitching Triple Crown with 18 wins, a 2.38 ERA and 225 strikeouts.

What’s amazing about Sale’s season is that he actually could have been even better.

The Braves finished with -8 Defensive Runs Saved in games in which Sale pitched. Take those runs off Sale’s ledger and his ERA would be right around where his FIP ended up (2.09). Sale was one of 13 pitchers whose teams had -8 Runs Saved or worse on the batted balls against him in 2024.

By comparison fellow Cy Young finalist Paul Skenes basically had an average defense fielding his balls (-1 Runs Saved) and Zack Wheeler’s defense played well behind him (4 Runs Saved). The pitcher who is going to win the AL Cy Young, Tarik Skubal, got 6 Runs Saved from the Tigers defense. Fellow finalist Seth Lugo got 6 Runs Saved from the Royals defense. And Guardians closer Emmanuel Clase got 11(!) Runs Saved from his defense (we wrote about that).

Sale was a victim of the adventures (or misadventures) of the Braves outfield. When Sale was on the mound, Braves outfielders combined for -9 Runs Saved. They turned 55% of the fly balls and line drives hit to the outfield against Sale into outs. MLB average is usually in the low 60s. That 55% ranks in the bottom 15% of qualifying pitchers.

A few examples:

This ball was scored a triple and the batter, Jahmai Jones, subsequently scored when the next hitter grounded out. To call that an earned run seems unfair to Sale.

This is a tough one too – a ground rule double that seemed to be a mental error by Jorge Soler, who ran after it as if he thought it was a foul ball. The Braves left fielders and center fielders had good defensive seasons overall. But their right fielders ranked last in Runs Saved.

Something similar happened here with Eddie Rosario in left field:

Here’s another one where scoring this a hit is penalizing the pitcher for his defense’s mistake – a fielder overrunning a pop up.

On that one, Sale more than bailed his defense out. He struck out 12 in 7 scoreless innings, as if he knew he had to be even better with the wind blowing at 14 MPH and the knowledge that his outfield defense was possibly going to struggle.

That’s not to say that the Braves outfield didn’t do right by Sale too.

But as the numbers show, the negatives outweighed the positives.

You’re probably going to hear a lot on Wednesday about all that Sale overcame to win the Cy Young Award, with the injuries he’s dealt with the last few years.

But saying he overcame physical adversity is only part of the story. He overcame defensive-induced adversity in several games this season too.