March 24 (UPI) -- Boston Red Sox pitcher Chris Sale left Saturday's game against the Houston Astros in the first inning after getting hit with a comebacker.
The baseball drilled the 6-foot-6, 180-pound lefty directly in the left hip while he was manning the mound at JetBlue Park in Fort Myers, Fla. Sale was evaluated and has a left hip contusion, according to the Red Sox.
He is still expected to start on Opening Day.
Sale had already gotten the first two batters of the inning out before walking Alex Bregman. He then settled in against Astros third baseman J.D. Davis.
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Davis drilled Sale's first offering of the at-bat, smacking a liner toward the pitcher's mound.
The ball hit Sale, forcing him to the ground. Sale hunched over in pain while he walked back to the mound. He limped around as his teammates converged on the hill to check on their ace. Red Sox coaches and medical staff walked out to Sale and escorted him back to the dugout.
"I don't see anything lingering from this," Sale told reporters after the game, according to MLB.com. "Looked a lot worse than it really is."
The ball hit Sale so hard that it caromed into foul territory. Davis was safe on first base with a single.
"When it first hit me, it kind of got me in the hip, but got the nerve, [the iliotibial]," Sale said. "So it shot all the way down to my foot. So that's what kind of made me worried. I was telling them when I was out there, 'Give me a minute. It'll come back. I'll be fine.' They didn't want to wait, so came in here, got it evaluated, looked at, figured out [it was] nothing serious, just a bruise."
"It kind of just shocked me more than anything, that initial blow."
Sale allowed one hit and had a strikeout and a walk on 26 pitches. The Red Sox won the game 6-0.
Boston battles the Tampa Bay Rays on Opening Day at 4 p.m. Thursday, March 29 at Tropicana Field in Tampa.
