The Kansas City Royals are visiting the Atlanta Braves on Friday, with first pitch set for 7:15 p.m. ET. Chris Sale will take the bump for the Braves, facing off against Royals lefty Cole Ragans in Georgia. Looking at the odds, lines and Sale’s strikeouts prop on DraftKings Sportsbook, here is a breakdown of how the 2024 NL Cy Young’s first official outing of 2026 could play out.
Chris Sale Strikeouts Prop
DraftKings Sportsbook currently has Sale’s strikeouts thrown line set at 6.5 for Friday’s contest against the Royals.
Across 20 starts and one bulk relief appearance in 2025, Sale went 7-5 with a 2.58 ERA, 1.066 WHIP, 165 strikeouts and 4.0 WAR. He averaged 11.8 strikeouts per nine innings – his highest mark since 2019. Sale missed over two months with a fractured left ribcage last summer, but he still earned an All-Star nod in spite of his absence. Thanks to that injury, though, Sale was unable to defend his Cy Young crown. The longtime White Sox and Red Sox ace went 18-3 with a 2.38 ERA, 1.013 WHIP, 225 strikeouts and 6.2 WAR when he joined the Braves in 2024, winning the NL Pitching Triple Crown in the process. As he approaches 37 years old, the southpaw’s age has hardly shown since arriving in Atlanta.
Sale went 2-0 with a 2.75 ERA and 1.017 WHIP in five Spring Training starts, regardless of how much stock you want to put into that. He recorded 15 strikeouts in 19.2 innings of work overall.
While Sale was surely going to start on Opening Day regardless, manager Walt Weiss didn’t really have many other options. Spencer Schwellenbach, Spencer Strider, AJ Smith-Shawver and Hurston Waldrep are all on the injured list to open the season. That puts a lot of pressure on Sale to hold strong atop the rotation and stay healthy this year.
Based on FanGraphs‘ Steamer model, Sale is projected to go 12-8 with a 3.18 ERA and 206 strikeouts across 28 starts and 169.0 innings in 2026. His 4.2 projected fWAR ranks No. 5 among starting pitchers, while his projected 10.98 strikeouts per nine innings also ranks No. 5.
Chris Sale picks, predictions
Considering the star lefty made his MLB debut all the way back in 2010, Sale has quite a few Opening Day starts under his belt. In six career Opening Day starts, Sale is 3-1 with a 4.00 ERA, 1.139 WHIP and 10.8 strikeouts per nine innings. He has has tossed seven or more strikeouts in five of those six outings, including his first appearance of 2025.
Sale has always been a strikeout machine, and his age hasn’t changed that. Sale made six appearances after returning from the injured list last August. He recorded six strikeouts once, then nine in each of the other five outings. On the whole last season, Sale cleared 6.5 strikeouts in 16 of his 21 appearances.
As for his opposition, the Royals’ lineup notched the fewest strikeouts in all of baseball. They only struck out more than 6.5 times in 46.9% of their regular season games, and that includes their strikeouts against relievers. There are a few new faces who could change that, though, FanGraphs projects Carter Jensen to post a 24.6% strikeout rate in 2026. The entirely new starting outfield trio of Isaac Collins, Lane Thomas and Starling Marte are projected to post 21.4%, 25.5% and 21.0% strikeout rates, respectively. Still, I feel good about Kansas City’s disciplined approach at the plate to shine through on Friday, even going against a potential Hall of Famer in Sale.
