KANSAS CITY — The chatter about who should start the All-Star Game on July 17 is already on the rise.

Should Chris Sale of the Boston Red Sox fail to capture his third consecutive start for the American League, don’t shed a single tear for him.

CHRIS SALE

Instead, rejoice.

The All-Star Game is all about the past – specifically, the first half.

This season, Sale is all about the future – specifically, pitching deep into October.

And while his recent surge in performance means he is very much in the conversation with Luis Severino of the Yankees and Justin Verlander of the Astros for best first-half performance by an AL starter, every Boston Red Sox fan in his or her right mind should by now understand how meaningless strong starts are for Sale.

Everybody remembers how Sale wasn’t quite at his peak powers last fall in Game 1 of the division series against the Houston Astros.

Everybody knows it’s not how Sale starts.

It’s how he finishes.

“He’s not here to put up numbers. He understands it’s something bigger,” said Manager Alex Cora. “Like I told them in that first meeting in Fort Myers, we look around the room and there are only three guys that have pitched in the World Series – Rick (Porcello), Joe (Kelly) and (Brandon) Work(man) – and there’s only one guy that has a World Series ring. It’s Work.

“They’re hungry for that, I know that. And (Sale’s) putting himself in a position, we feel in the second half he’s going to be strong and going into October he’s going to be what we want him to be.”

If it’s been written once, it’s been written a thousand times: The Red Sox want their starters – specifically, Sale, David Price and Porcello – to be as fresh as possible in October. That meant a decrease in workloads between starts and a tight lid on pitch counts. The intent was to preserve bullets and sharpness come the playoffs.

Sale admitted this spring that he came out blazing in April last year to prove he was the lights-out ace everybody said he was after his trade from the White Sox, and the price paid came due in the playoffs.

This year the silly numbers weren’t there from the start.

He’s been sipping the 5-Hour Energy instead of gulping it.

But here in July, he’s back in silly number mode.

Look at how his WHIP (0.971, 0.950, 0.756), OPS against (.613, .605, .422) and batting average against (.203, .183, .154) have been trending over the course of his six starts each in March/April, May and June.

Sale’s ERA of 2.41 trails both Severino (1.98) and Verlander (2.12), yet Sale leads Severino in WHIP, strikeouts per nine innings and batting average against, and he leads Verlander in OPS against and WAR.

It’s too close to call and about two starts too early for Houston Manager A.J. Hinch to decide who deserves the nod but Hinch has cannily eliminated Verlander from the conversation by announcing his ace will start on the Sunday before the All-Star Game.

Hinch, not Cora, gets to make the decision about who gets to start: Sale or Severino, who made his first All-Star appearance last year and is on the cusp of greatness in his own right.

In Sale, Cora sees a pitcher at the peak of his powers, and the comparison he makes speaks to how high he’s casting his gaze.

“He reminds me a little of Randy Johnson now, like, right now, the way he’s throwing the ball the last … well, after we gave him those off days,” said Cora, referring to the two extra days of rest Sale received after his first start in June, as well as an extra day of rest he had between two other June starts.

“Throwing 100 with a slider. One thing that you look at him, it looks effortless right now. He’s just throwing and you look up and it’s 99, 100. He looks great. He’s healthy. He’s in a good spot.”

That spot has nothing to do with Sale starting his third All-Star Game in a row.

It’s seeing him on the mound in three series in a row in October.

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