It appears as if Chris Sale is just about ready to get back on the mound for the Red Sox. Boston manager Alex Cora announced Friday afternoon that his ace lefty and A.L. Cy Young contender will be activated from the DL to start Tuesday’s series opener against the Blue Jays at Fenway Park. Inflammation in the left shoulder has kept Sale out of action since August 12, and that’s the only time he’s made a start since July 27.

A cautious approach is obviously in the best interest of the Red Sox who hold a commanding lead in the A.L. East standings. With that in mind, the plan for Sale is to be limited to just two innings and 40 pitches in this initial outing. The approach here is to build Sale back to full strength in time for the playoffs. For fantasy purposes, this news could actually make Sale a two-start hurler for next week, and even if he is limited on a per-start basis, the potential of five, six, maybe even seven strong frames for the week is worth a role of the dice for those that have been waiting patiently on him in weekly-move formats.

 

In Case You Missed It

Ramon Laureano continues to deliver at the plate for the A’s. In Friday’s 8-4 win over the Rangers, the rookie outfielder went 2-for-4 with a pair of solo home runs, including a leadoff shot. Laureano now has two multi-homer games since August 20 (18 games) and has posted a .340/.446/.736 slash line across 65 plate appearances in that span.

A pair of locked-in All-Stars led the Diamondbacks to a 5-3 victory over the Braves in Arizona on Friday night. Patrick Corbin held the opposition to two runs or less for the fourth consecutive outing, as he limited the Braves to just one run on four hits and a walk alongside nine strikeouts. On the offensive side, Paul Goldschmidt went 2-for-2 with a solo homer, three walks and two runs scored. During his current eight-game hitting streak, Goldy has gone 14-for-30 with three roundtrippers and three doubles.

Masahiro Tanaka made it back-to-back dominant performances to begin September, as he allowed just three hits and no walks while striking out 10 batters across eight shutout frames in Seattle on Friday night. Over 15.0 innings this month, Tanaka has surrendered only one run on 10 hits and a walk with 16 punchouts. This is exactly what the Yankees want to see from him with the postseason looming.

 

Saturday on the Hill

The Marlins at Pirates is the only game on the slate set to begin before 4:05 PM ET with Wei-Yin Chen going up against Iván Nova . This may not look like much of an opportunity to find potential fantasy value, but Chen has been in quite a nice groove as of late. Last Saturday, the veteran southpaw gave up only one run on three hits with seven strikeouts in eight innings against the Blue Jays. Chen sports an impressive 1.44 ERA and 30-to-6 K/BB rate across 31.1 innings over five starts since the beginning of August. It is worth pointing out that four of those starts came at home in Miami where Chen holds 1.77 ERA for the year.

In the mid-afternoon group of games, Charlie Morton will be reinstated from the DL to make his first start since August 28. This won’t be an ideal setting for the 2018 All-Star in Boston ane it figures that he could be on at least some type of pitch/inning restriction. Morton has given up nine earned runs over his last 9.2 innings, but he’ll still head to the mound with a nice 3.14 ERA and 11.0 K/9 for the year.

Clay Buchholz will look to continue his most surprising comeback campaign Saturday night, as he will duel with Atlanta righty Julio Teherán in the desert. Buchholz boasts a 2.05 ERA over 15 starts this season and has allowed one run or fewer in each of his last four outings. During that span, he has surrendered a total of two runs on 18 hits with a 20-to-4 K/BB ratio across 28.0 innings.

 

Streaking

Tommy Pham - 11 games - 19-for-46, 1.210 OPS, 3 HR, 2 3B, 2 2B

Carlos Santana - 9 games - 12-for-36, 1.007 OPS, 3 HR

Stephen Piscotty - 9 games - 12-for-32, 1.260 OPS, 4 HR