Hot Sale: Best performances ever through 9 starts

At this moment, it's possible Chris Sale actually believes Jake Arrieta is the best pitcher in baseball. Every time Sale takes the mound, though, that position becomes less credible.

Having dismantled the Houston Astros on Thursday with his second complete-game effort in as many starts, the lanky left-hander owns a 1.58 ERA in 2016 and is now the first Chicago White Sox pitcher in the live-ball era to open a season 9-0. Boasting a remarkable 0.72 WHIP and 6.20 strikeout-to-walk ratio, as well, the 27-year-old is in the midst of the most impressive performance on the south side of Chicago since Season 4 of "Shameless."

Seriously, though, has any other pitcher ever enjoyed such success through his first nine starts of a season? Well, let's take a look.

Dave Ferriss

With Ted Williams still off fighting the axis powers, Boston Red Sox fans knew the 1945 campaign probably wouldn't be all that memorable, especially after a 77-77 finish the year prior, but right-hander Dave Ferriss' wildly unexpected start to the campaign gave them something to cheer about. Despite not playing a professional game in almost three years, Ferriss hurled a complete-game shutout against the Philadelphia A's on April 29 in his MLB debut and never looked back, authoring a 1.01 ERA while going 8-1 without allowing a home run in his first nine starts of the season. (During that stretch, by the way, which lasted until mid-June, Ferriss also recorded his first of eight career saves after being summoned to throw the ninth inning in the first game of a doubleheader against Detroit).

Steve Rogers

For their first four years in existence, the Montreal Expos' rotation was comprised of castaways like Bill Stoneman and Carl Morton. Then, in 1973, Steve Rogers showed up. Summoned from Triple-A Peninsula just ahead of the All-Star break, Rogers wasted no time vindicating the Expos' decision to draft him fourth overall two years earlier, notching two shutouts in his first three starts without allowing more than two runs in an outing until his seventh time out. Thanks to a lack of run support from Montreal's meager offense, though, the 23-year-old rookie managed a 5-3 record through his first nine starts that belied a 1.20 ERA and 0.36 HR/9.

Fernando Valenzuela

The pudgy 20-year-old was so dominant to begin his first full season with the Los Angeles Dodgers, he turned into a cultural phenomenon of almost Beatles-esque proportion. What spawned Fernando-mania? Well, in his first eight career starts - he pitched exclusively in relief as a September call-up the season prior - Valenzuela threw five complete-game shutouts while allowing only four runs combined over the other three outings (also complete games, by the way). It wasn't until mid-May of his magical rookie season that he took his first loss, leaving Valenzuela with a mind-boggling 0.91 ERA, 0.82 WHIP, and 8-1 record through his first nine starts of 1981 - the year in which he became the first and only pitcher to be named Rookie of the Year and take home the Cy Young award in the same season.

Pedro Martinez

At the height of baseball's steroid era, the most feared man in the game was a jheri-curled right-hander who stood 5-foot-11 and weighed maybe 175 pounds soaking wet. In 2000, after earning the American League Cy Young award in two of the previous three seasons, Red Sox ace Pedro Martinez was positively superhuman from the get-go, crafting a 1.19 ERA with an 0.94 WHIP over his first nine starts while striking out an ungodly 36.7 percent of opposing hitters. Throughout that span, Martinez went 7-2 while completing at least seven innings each time out and surrendering, on average, one home run every 80 at-bats.

Masahiro Tanaka

Fresh off signing a seven-year, $155-million contract with the New York Yankees, Tanaka's stateside career got off to an inauspicious start a couple years back - the first batter he faced in the bigs, Melky Cabrera, took him yard - but the then-25-year-old adjusted with aplomb. Over his next eight outings, the Japanese right-hander posted a 73:8 strikeout-to-walk ratio, holding opponents to a .253 OBP while surrendering more than three runs in just one outing. Nine starts into the 2014 campaign, Tanaka was 6-1 with a 2.39 ERA and 0.97 WHIP and had clearly usurped CC Sabathia as the Yankees' ace.