Chris Sale had to battle through a string of rallies on Thursday night in the Atlanta Braves' 7-2 loss to the Toronto Blue Jays. While he made it 5 2/3 innings, allowing three runs and two walks with six strikeouts, a key stat on the night was the 10 hits allowed. It was the first time that he has allowed as many as 10 hits since he joined the Braves. The last time he allowed 10 hits or more came on Sept. 6, 2021, when he was with the Boston Red Sox. Despite the onslaught of seeing-eye singles and balls with launch angles of zero or below that found a hole, the Blue Jays only managed to make anything of their rallies against Sale once. They put up three runs in the third. Otherwise, Sale kept them at bay and his team in the game. A major reason he wasn't allowed to escape the jam in the sixth innings was because his pitch count had reached 108. "Kind of just a weird game, yeah?" Sale said after the game. "And I bet if you look at every time I've given up 10 hits in a game, it's probably attached to six, seven, eight, nine runs, something like that." There was some good and some bad he felt he could take from the game. While he said he felt his stuff in general was good - notably felt the slider was better - he added that his command wasn't always where he wanted it to be. He described it as in-and-out times, and when it was out, it was difficult to find it again.A goal of his going forward is to use the extra rest time and the throwing he does in between starts to make tweaks. "You just kind of move the bars a bit, and start tinkering here and there and just try to fine tune and work more maybe this week. I''ll try to find a little bit better command consistently."He felt he had to take more advantage of the extra rest time that he gets. His last two starts saw him get more than five days' rest. To ensure he gets the extra rest, the Braves have had to move other arms around to make it work. "I wish I was able to reward our guys a little bit more. These last couple of start been, you know - you get seven days off, you better at least get through the sixth innings. I was really hoping to at least to the seventh, beacuse I know our guys are getting used down there a lot." In the end, Sale isn't alone in the frustration of not getting missed bats against the Blue Jays this season. As a team, they have struck out the second-fewest times, only trailing the Tampa Bay Rays. They may not get on base much. Their team on-base percentage is .312, ranked 24th in baseball, but they're going to make you earn the out. "They put the ball in play," manager Walt Weiss said. "That's their identity, and that's what they did."Even if the command isn't where Sale likes it to be, 70 of those 108 pitches were for strikes (64.8%). Maybe a handful of pitches didn't go where he wanted them to, but the bulk of those hits, including one of them that drove in a run, came on pitches that were well-placed and had a low likelihood of finding their way through. A weird game was a good way to put it. There are other aspects of the game that can be looked to for what went wrong as well. The Braves scored just two runs, and didn't have a lot of baserunners. Reynaldo López had his troubles with the Blue Jays lineup, too. Overall, it's the outlook of someone who has a high standard for himself. Even if he did what he had to do, if the team doesn't come out on top and he's handed the loss, he's going to see what he could have done better. He didn't see the need to hit himself in the head with a baseball this time, but there was still a lack of satisfaction. It's why he's a future Hall of Famer, and it's why he's been able to have the renaissance he's had in the late stage of his career. There is that determination to be that much better the next time out than you were before, regardless of how it panned out. Sign up for our Free Atlanta Braves Newsletter and follow us on Facebook for the latest newsAdd us as a preferred source on GoogleFollow