Hopefully it's really minor, he misses one or at most two starts, and is OK the rest of the way.
But even if the news is worse than that, we shouldn't panic. The Sox are 14-8 in games Sale has started this year, a .636 pace (yes, the team has actually fared a bit worse with Sale on the mound than otherwise). At that pace, assuming he would start 10 of the remaining 54 games (I'm making it slightly less than 20% on the assumption that the Sox would find a way to stretch out the rotation a bit in September anyway), the Sox would go either 6-4 or 7-3 in his remaining starts. If you replace that with average, coin-flip performance (which, given our offense, implies worse than average pitching), it means a deficit of one or two games. Would that make the Yankees' job a bit easier? Sure. Would it be reason to panic and assume the team is toast? Not hardly.
Sale is magnificent, and a major part of the reason why the team is as good as it is. But only a part. The Sox are better with him, but still outstanding without him.
But even if the news is worse than that, we shouldn't panic. The Sox are 14-8 in games Sale has started this year, a .636 pace (yes, the team has actually fared a bit worse with Sale on the mound than otherwise). At that pace, assuming he would start 10 of the remaining 54 games (I'm making it slightly less than 20% on the assumption that the Sox would find a way to stretch out the rotation a bit in September anyway), the Sox would go either 6-4 or 7-3 in his remaining starts. If you replace that with average, coin-flip performance (which, given our offense, implies worse than average pitching), it means a deficit of one or two games. Would that make the Yankees' job a bit easier? Sure. Would it be reason to panic and assume the team is toast? Not hardly.
Sale is magnificent, and a major part of the reason why the team is as good as it is. But only a part. The Sox are better with him, but still outstanding without him.