Boston Red Sox starter Chris Sale was released from a Boston-area hospital Monday morning and will rejoin the team Tuesday after dealing with a stomach illness, the team announced.
When exactly he will be able to rejoin Boston's rotation in a pitching capacity, however, remains a mystery.
"We need him to get here first and then see how he feels," Red Sox manager Alex Cora said. "It's more than the Red Sox. It's about the individual.
"Everything I heard, he should be fine, and it's a matter of him to show up and we'll talk to him and see how he feels physically and go from there."
Sale was admitted Sunday afternoon to Massachusetts General Hospital, where he stayed for overnight observation. Cora said following Sunday night's 7-5 American League Championship Series win over the Houston Astros that he expected the pitcher to still meet the team in Houston this week.
"Thank God it's nothing serious at all," Cora said Monday.
After the Red Sox and Astros split the first two games of the series at Fenway Park, the series continues at Houston's Minute Maid Park with Game 3 on Tuesday.
Sale pitched in the series opener Saturday night in Boston. He lasted four innings, allowing two hits and four walks. Houston ultimately won that game, 7-2.
Cora said Sale's performance in that game had nothing to do with the stomach illness, as it had developed overnight after the game. At some point early Sunday, Sale began throwing up and decided he better check into a hospital, Cora said.
"It was probably in the morning, like I want to say 2 in the morning, 3 in the morning. That's what I hear," Cora said. "When I got to the ballpark [Sunday], they told me he was there. Nothing serious. He was going to go through a battery of tests and see what was going on."
Sale's teammates were stunned initially to hear that he had been hospitalized.
"We were all pretty surprised when we found out the news," said Nathan Eovaldi, Tuesday's Game 3 Red Sox starter. "But I've heard nothing but good things about him now."
Cora understood just how jarring it may have been to first hear about the extent of Sale's illness in the middle of an important playoff series. But the manager contended all along that he believed the hospital stay would be brief.
"Whenever you have to go to [the] hospital, you have to be quote-unquote 'worried,'" Cora said after Sunday's game. "But he should be fine."