I can see your problem. Perhaps it's salvia incomprehesibilis or stangii? Worst comes to worst, you get to name it. It does remind me a bit of Indigo Spires under some sort of stress.

I looks like S.'Blue Chiquita' to me. Actually 'Blue Chiquita' and 'Indigo Spires' share one parent, Salvia longispicata, so their flowers look a little bit similar. Check a pic of it in Plant Delights Nursery's website.

DJR from Athens, Greece

Here is a link that might be useful: Blue Chiquita

Dariot, thanks for the link, the term "deep quilting" fits the leaves perfectly along with fuzzy texture, but they do not have the shiny silver underside. Maybe that develops over time . . . or if it is not struggling for life.

If it is Chiquita, and it survives the summer, I will need to bring it in for the winter--as it is out of my zone.

So if it is Chiquita, why is it blooming now? I guess it's possible as short daylight period salvias reach the end of their season. It's a puzzle.

By the way DJR, are new world salvias popular in Greek gardens, and who polinates them - sphinx moths?

This can happen happen sometimes, especially if you have an extended period of clouding and more often in small plants. Here in Greece, where we don't usually see many cloudy days from May till October I don't usually get this. But if you've been for example in San Francisco you can see most short daylight period salvias flowering year round! Maybe it is a combination of daylight and temperatures as well.

New world salvias are not very popular here, even though they do extremely well in our climate (I've been adding to my collection for the last 5 years and I never found one that couldn't grow well!). Only S.microphylla var.lemmonii is quite common in gardens.
Pollination happens by bees but only to those they can make it. They never set a lot of seeds.

On the other hand old world salvias and particularly our natives like fruticosa, sclarea, nemorosa etc. are quite popular.