MASHANTUCKET, Conn. -- Chris Sale appeared onstage in a packed theater Friday night, inside a casino crawling with Boston Red Sox fans, and got a standing ovation for doing nothing more than showing up and putting on a jersey.

It won't always be so easy.

Sale has been the best left-handed pitcher in the American League five years running. He's also the Red Sox's shiny new bauble, finally unveiled this weekend at the team's annual winter festival after being acquired from the Chicago White Sox six weeks ago.

That's enough to get the attention of a region still obsessed with baseball, regardless of how preoccupied it is at the moment by the local NFL team's march toward another Super Bowl. But while Sale said Saturday he was "blown away" by the warm welcome Red Sox fans tend to give all new players, it's far more difficult to win their affection.

Sale need only ask his new co-aces, Rick Porcello and David Price.

Porcello's first season with the Red Sox was the worst of his career. He went 9-15 with a 4.92 ERA in 2015, and when he wasn't getting booed off the mound at Fenway Park, the Red Sox were being lampooned for signing him to a four-year, $82.5 million contract after trading outfielder Yoenis Cespedes to get him.

Price came to Boston last year as the highest-paid pitcher in history. But there was no living up to $217 million worth of expectations, and after capping an inconsistent season by losing another playoff start, his line of critics is longer than the Freedom Trail.

So now it's Sale's turn to come in for the smooth Boston landing that Porcello and Price -- and fellow All-Star pitchers John Lackey (2010) and Josh Beckett (2006) before them – weren't able to make.

"I'm not really focusing on that," Sale said during a break in the festivities at Foxwoods Resort Casino. "It's the same game. No matter what uniform you're wearing or what ballpark you're pitching in, it's still strike one, strike two, strike three. I just try to keep the same mindset."

Porcello and Price said the same things, of course. But there's something about the first season in Boston that causes even the most accomplished pitchers to struggle as never before. It's a phenomenon that nobody can quite explain. Maybe it's the demanding fan base or the relentless media. Perhaps it's the pressure to win every year, which doesn't exist in every city. Regardless, the challenge of adapting to Boston has overwhelmed enough players that even Red Sox officials don't deny its existence.

"This is my third year, and I know you can go back earlier in time when guys came to Boston and that first year was more of an adjustment period than some other cities or markets," pitching coach Carl Willis said. "The fact of the matter is that people pay attention and people have opinions about how you play the game and how you perform. It takes a brief period of time for the players to get comfortable with maybe the added attention or the passion and the knowledge of the fans."

Maybe Sale will be different. He pointed to the proximity of the Red Sox's southwest Florida spring-training facility in Fort Myers to his home in Naples as a reason he will feel comfortable right away. And he hailed Boston as a city that he and his wife "have loved traveling to" over the years.

But Sale also has spent his career with one team and worked with one pitching coach. Because he spent only a few weeks in the minor leagues after getting drafted in 2010, the White Sox's Don Cooper has overseen virtually every pitch Sale has thrown as a professional. Last season, Cooper encouraged Sale to focus on pitching to contact rather than trying to strike out every hitter in order to stay in the game longer, a change Sale embraced en route to going 17-10 with a 3.34 ERA in a career-high 226⅔ innings.

Willis phoned Sale one day after the trade was completed last month, and he intends to arrive early to spring training to continue building rapport. But there's no denying that everything with which Sale has been familiar throughout his career will seem new now.

"Coop and I had an awesome relationship. He's one of my favorite guys I've ever met," Sale said. "But you just kind of keep doing what you've been doing. This isn't like a complete change, just a different uniform and a different city."

Said Willis: "It's about the pitcher, the player, Chris Sale being comfortable. I know Don Cooper. I've talked to him numerous times during my career as we've played the White Sox, and not to compare myself with Coop, but our way of doing things is similar, from what I've gathered from Chris. I think that's important, and hopefully it will allow him to get comfortable right away."

Porcello and Price can help ease the transition, too. Even if they're unable to pinpoint exactly why they struggled during their first seasons in Boston and offer appropriate warnings, their mere presence in an ace-filled Red Sox rotation might lessen some of the burden for Sale.

In Porcello's case, the adjustment took about five months and a brief Triple-A rehab assignment. But he pitched well down the stretch in 2015 and dominated last year, going 22-4 with a 3.15 ERA and winning the AL Cy Young Award.

Despite the poor beginning of Price's 2016 season, and the sour ending, he did have a 24-start stretch in which he posted a 3.07 ERA. And although Price insists that the pressure of Boston was "nothing I didn't expect," team president Dave Dombrowski and manager John Farrell believe he will be more relaxed and sure of himself in Year 2.

Lackey and Beckett figured it out, too. Lackey was a key member of the 2013 World Series championship team, while Beckett went 20-7 and was runner-up for the Cy Young Award in 2007, his second season in Boston and also a World Series title year for the Red Sox.

"We have just kind of conversations in passing, but it's never a topic where you sit down and talk about it over a cup of coffee," Porcello said of the break-in period in Boston. "There's things that you notice that you talk about because you're around each other for so much. But [Price and Sale] are both unbelievable pitchers with much better track records than mine. They know how to handle this sort of stuff."

Price is still learning, and Sale will soon get a crash course. But once January turns into April and Sale begins appearing at Fenway instead of Foxwoods, it will take more than showing up and putting on a jersey to keep getting those standing ovations.