Sale believes spring bout with pneumonia may have been COVID-19

In early February, Chris Sale missed a portion of spring camp due to a bout with pneumonia. Now, the Boston Red Sox ace believes he may have been sick with an undiagnosed case of COVID-19.

"Honestly, yes," Sale replied when asked if having COVID-19 had crossed his mind, according to Chris Cotillo of MassLive. "It has been talked about a lot. ... It's crazy to look at my symptoms and think about the symptoms of people that have the COVID-19 virus, and some of the similarities. We may never know, but I'm definitely hoping not."

While Sale was sent home by team doctors at the time, he's skeptical that he would have avoided passing the coronavirus on to others.

"As contagious as this virus is, I think if I had it, somebody in my family and a lot of people at the park would have been infected by it," Sale said. "I don’t want to make light of it and joke about having something like that, but it definitely crossed my mind and I asked people about it. I got tested for the flu and it came back negative. The tests for the virus weren't out yet. If there's a way to find out, I'd love to find out. I don't know. I think it might be a stretch."

Due to the illness and his late start to spring training, Sale was expected to miss Opening Day. Later, the seven-time All-Star was diagnosed with an arm injury and wound up requiring Tommy John surgery in late March.