In quest for efficiency, Sale succeeding

CHICAGO — Chris Sale in 2015 featured a large number of swings and misses from opposing hitters, leading to a single-season franchise-record 274 strikeouts.

In this campaign, Sale’s strikeouts check in at a noticeable 26 over 30-plus innings. But the White Sox ace has been more focused upon earlier contact in the count.

Through four starts, the plan has worked to near perfection.

Sale moved to 4-0 for the second time, after starting a career-best 5-0 in 2014, with a 2-1 victory over the Angels on Wednesday at U.S. Cellular Field. He has worked at least seven innings in each start and has been scored upon in just four of the 30-plus innings.

His pitch count has yet to go over 108, which was Wednesday’s total, despite the quality work deep into games.

“For me, the most important thing is try to keep those guys down there [in the bullpen] out of it as much as we can,” Sale said. “We use our guys in the ‘pen a lot, so any time we can give them a day off, eat a couple more innings than usual, that’s what we try to do.”

“He has really …

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