Chris Sale dared to take a quick glance at his finger and had one thought rush into his mind: “Here goes more time.”

Sale maintained that he felt no pain when he was struck in the hand by a 106.7 mph line drive off the bat of Aaron Hicks on Sunday afternoon. Though he suffered a left pinky finger fracture on the play, Sale could only feel anger and frustration.

“It’s very frustrating,” said Sale, who lasted just two-thirds of an inning and was tagged for three runs (two earned) in Boston’s 13-2 loss to the Yankees. “Elbow surgery for a pitcher is not uncommon, right? That happens with the job, with what we’re doing. We deal with that. Some of this other stuff, you think, ‘Why me?’ ”

Sale, who had never broken a finger before, was to see a hand specialist either Sunday evening or Monday in Boston for a further prognosis.

“Hopefully, it’s nothing that’s going to take him out for a long, long time,” said Red Sox manager Alex Cora, who expressed sympathy towards Sale. “We’ll have to wait.”

Sunday’s start marked only Sale’s second appearance of the season. The left-hander tossed five scoreless innings against the Rays in his season debut on Tuesday, after spending over three months on the IL with a right rib stress fracture that he sustained in spring training.

The finger fracture is just the latest in an avalanche of injuries for Sale, who has pitched just 48 ¹/₃ big-league innings since the conclusion of the 2019 season. Elbow inflammation curtailed his 2019 campaign, and eventual Tommy John surgery sidelined him through August of last year.

“I just want to do my job,” said Sale, a seven-time All-Star. “I just want to play baseball. I’ve had so many things take that away from me. It sucks.

“It’s par for the course, honestly. Think about my timeline. It’s just been s–t after s–t after s–t. Just more s–t to deal with. What can you do? Everyone gets knocked down. It’s how you get back up. It’s where I’m at again. Get back up, dust yourself off, clean up, get back to it.”