Sale’s balk turning point of Braves’ loss to Yankees

NEW YORK — A balk call on Braves starter Chris Sale on Saturday gave the Yankees the go-ahead run in the fifth inning at Yankee Stadium and was a major part of the Braves’ 5-4 loss, their second straight.

In a 2-2 game, and with Yankees’ right fielder Spencer Jones on third, home plate umpire Dan Merzel was called for a balk while Yankees’ catcher Austin Wells was in the right-handed batter’s box. That call gave Jones home plate and the Yankees the lead.

Sale was incensed. Catcher Drake Baldwin was confused.

To keep Sale from getting rung up, Braves manager Walt Weiss charged from the dugout to intervene and was tossed by Merzel — Weiss’s first ejection as Braves’ skipper.

“I’ll let other guys talk about it,” Sale said. “If you wanna talk to (Merzel) or if you want to talk to (Weiss) about it, they obviously had a better conversation than I did. So I’ll leave it at that.”

Crew chief Dan Bellino explained the ruling to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution after the game.

“Chris Sale failed to declare that he was going to be pitching from the windup for the second batter (Wells), and he’s required by rule to make that declaration as a hybrid pitcher,” Bellino said. He added, “It needs to be very clear. It’s not something that we can assume. It’s something that it’s a requirement of every pitcher that pitches from the hybrid.”

Baldwin’s perspective: “I’ve seen Sale go out of the windup every single time with a guy on third. I’m wondering if (Sale) just didn’t have many guys on third and without, like, two outs? Or they ended up scoring or whatever it may be? But I’ve never seen a redeclare be called. It seemed like a point of emphasis this year, and that’s kind of what the umpire told to me. I don’t know exactly what the rule is, but that’s what happened.”

Being a hybrid pitcher means Sale pitches from both the windup and from the stretch, the latter being a pitching stance which allows for pickoff moves. Thus, Sale declared, before facing José Caballero, that he would be pitching from the windup with Jones on third and no one out.

Sale struck out Caballero on five pitches.

When Wells stepped up to the plate, and as Sale began set to deliver the first pitch of the at-bat, Merzel pointed at Sale, then stepped out from behind Baldwin and pointed at Sale again before directing Jones to score from third.

“He’s never (declared) in his career,” Weiss said. “Guy’s been in the league for 20 years. They said they’re cracking down on that. Nobody told anyone — we never heard that. That’s a conversation, that’s a memo that, ‘Hey, this is going on.’

“You can’t make that call right there, at that point in the game, in a game like that. Can’t do it.”

Wells would double off Sale, and then Sale walked Paul Goldschmidt before getting an inning-ending double play. But the damage seemed to be done from a psyche standpoint.

The Braves did get within 4-3 in the eighth and 5-4 in the ninth, only to have Baldwin fly to right to make the final out with the tying run on second.

“Especially when you got a guy like Sale that can punch anyone out, it’s tough to just kind of give ‘em a free run there,” Baldwin said of the balk. “I think (Sale) did a good job coming back the next inning and executing some pitches even after that happened, but that’s a really weird situation and didn’t go our way there.”

Sale had fallen behind early Saturday by allowing a run in the second inning. Trent Grisham hit a 405-foot fly ball to deep center that one-hopped the wall for a one-out double, and Grisham was still standing at second with two outs when Jones rolled an RBI single up the middle.

Yankees starter Gerrit Cole looked unhittable through four innings, allowing only a bloop double in the second and a sharp single in the fourth. Then came the fifth inning.

Mauricio Dubón drove a first-pitch double into the left field corner. Mike Yastrzemski hit a second-pitch RBI double to deep left to score Dubón. Back-to-back singles by Austin Riley and Jim Jarvis, respectively, gave the Braves the lead — Jarvis’ RBI knock broke an 0-for-13 skid for the rookie.

The Braves had two on and none out at that point with the top of the order due up, only to see Baldwin strike out, Ronald Acuña Jr. fly out to right and Matt Olson go down swinging.

That loomed large in the bottom of the fifth when Sale walked George Lombard Jr., and Jones hit a 3-2 slider to deep right-center for an RBI triple, tying the game at 2. That preceded the brief chaos that ensued following Sale’s balk.

“It’s just a tough game to lose by one run there, just no way about it,” Sale said. “We lose game one, I pride myself on trying to win my starts, and especially after losing the (first) game (of the series). So, just tough one all around.”

Sale (12-7) got out of that fifth inning without any further damage, then threw an angry 1-2-3 sixth to end his afternoon. The veteran lefty was charged three earned runs in six innings of work while giving up five hits and issuing two walks. He struck out eight and threw 108 pitches.

It was only the fifth time this season in 21 starts that Sale had allowed three earned runs or more.

Víctor Mederos took over once Sale had departed and Mederos promptly served up a solo home run to Lombard to right field, making it 4-2.

Acuña got that run back in the top of the eighth, crushing the 11th pitch from Yankees’ reliever Brent Headrick into the seats in left field. Then Braves’ left-hander Danny Young put a 1-0 sinker down the heart of the plate that Ben Rice hammered to straightaway center, making it 5-3.

Cole (6-5) went seven innings, matching a season high, allowed just two runs on six hits, and struck out nine. Sixty of Cole’s 82 pitches were strikes.

The Braves did get the winning run to the plate in the ninth after David Bednar issued a one-out walk to Yastrzemski and allowed a two-out, pinch-hit RBI single to Dominic Smith. Baldwin flew out to shallow right to end the game and the Braves fell to 18-18 in one-run games.