Garrett Crochet’s first year with Boston couldn’t be going any better.
An All-Star and Cy Young candidate, Crochet is 14-5 with a 2.38 ERA.
Red Sox are closing in on their first postseason berth since 2021.
It’s just that for his first four seasons in the major leagues, Crochet was pigeonholed as a reliever, circumstances sending him to the Chicago White Sox bullpen and keeping him there, even if they expended the 11th overall pick in the 2020 draft due to the left-hander’s body of work as a starter at Tennessee.
Yet in not quite two seasons, Crochet has crafted a stunning rise.
Talking his way into a shot at the White Sox rotation. Dominating in an All-Star campaign, even as his innings were limited on his way back from Tommy John surgery. Earning a trade to a contender, the Boston Red Sox, who pounced on his burgeoning dominance and signed him to a $170 million contract extension after just one start.
And now, engineering a season so excellent that he’s nearing co-favorite status for the American League Cy Young Award, driving the pace car for a Red Sox club that’s nearing its first playoff berth since 2021.
Let me try, Crochet told the White Sox and Red Sox. And then circumstances and his own talent and will crafted a new reality – Garret Crochet, ace – into existence.
“I feel like I answered that question internally last year,” Crochet tells USA TODAY Sports of his viability as a starter. “And then, once I signed the extension, it kind of became my only path. For better or worse, whether I want to be or think I can, it doesn’t matter.
“I am that guy now.”
He has delivered on every front.
One year after his workload was truncated in his first full season back from elbow reconstruction, Crochet leads the AL in innings pitched and is third in the majors with a 2.38 ERA. He’s second in the majors in both strikeouts (207) and punchouts per nine innings (1.2).
In fact, in several categories he’s second only to reigning Cy Young winner and presumed repeat titlist Tarik Skubal of the Detroit Tigers. Yet Crochet has closed the gap on several fronts and Skubal has a slim edge in bWAR (5.7 to 5.3).
Both pitchers should have about five starts left, time enough for a little more volatility in the ranks. Yet regardless of how the decimal points fall during awards season, Crochet’s flag is firmly planted.
“He’s a 1A ace. He’s top of the line, one of the best pitchers in baseball,” says Red Sox right-hander Lucas Giolito, the White Sox’s ace when Crochet debuted as a reliever shortly after his 21st birthday in 2020. “With the White Sox, he came up as a baby, he was like 20 years old. With the delivery and everything, it was like, can he start? Can he throw six innings, seven innings and recover?
“He took it upon himself to say, ‘No, I’m a starter. Watch how I work. Give me a chance.’ And the White Sox gave him that chance and proved himself.”
He’s also reversed a different sort of curse in Boston.
‘We got on a roll and never looked back’
Ostensibly, the Red Sox buried the “Curse of the Bambino” when they won the 2004 World Series, ending 86 years of futility since their ill-fated trade of Babe Ruth to the Yankees. That salve popped open a little bit, though, when the club traded All-Star Mookie Betts just two seasons after he led them to the 2018 World Series title.
In the four seasons since, the Red Sox were a superpower adrift, a robotically .500 team and a franchise that not even a Netflix series could make particularly relevant.
Yet when the 121-loss White Sox dangled Crochet in earnest last winter, opportunity aligned. The Red Sox had four of the finest prospects in the game and, in a departure from their numbingly vanilla commitment to “sustainability,” surrendered one of them for Crochet.
It was an excellent “baseball trade”: Coveted catcher Kyle Teel has already produced an .800 OPS in 163 plate appearances for the White Sox. Chase Meidroth may be their second baseman of the future. Wikelman Gonzalez has landed in the White Sox bullpen, and outfielder Braden Montgomery has reached Class AA.
The Red Sox? They merely disrupted the balance of power in the AL.
With Crochet in hand, they’ve maneuvered past Baltimore and Tampa Bay and yes, the New York Yankees in the AL East, holding the No. 1 wild card spot and pulling within four games of first-place Toronto.
Certainly, Roman Anthony, the rookie they held (and extended on a $130 million deal) has been a huge factor, along with free agent import Alex Bregman and bullpen stars like Garrett Whitlock and closer Aroldis Chapman.
Yet for more than two months, the top of the rotation has carried. Giolito owns an 8-1 record and 2.31 ERA since June 10. In his last 15 starts, Brayan Bello has a 2.75 ERA and is averaging 6 ⅓ innings per outing.
And Crochet, who leads the AL with 14 wins, just hasn’t stopped: Boston has won 17 of his 26 starts and he’s completed at least seven innings in 12 of them.
“We got on a roll,” says Crochet, “and really never looked back.”
Indeed, even as veteran Walker Buehler pitched his way into the bullpen and Tanner Houck succumbed to Tommy John surgery, the Red Sox are 43-28 since June 7, riding their three horses atop the rotation to a 73-60 mark.
“It’s everything. That’s where the game’s won,” says Red Sox shortstop Trevor Story. “If we pitch well, we stay in the games longer and it gives the offense more chances to strike. It gives us a sense of relief as an offense, that if we don’t get it done the first time around, we still have a good chance.”
The endless cycle
As an autumn of great opportunity approaches, Crochet aims to temper what’s possibly ahead, even as he mentally gears up for it. He made brief relief appearances with the White Sox’s 2020 and ’21 playoff teams but will bear a different load this time – Game 1 starter, say.
He and Buehler, the Dodgers’ World Series hero last season, were chatting the other day about the logistics of October and the unique preparations that come with it.
On the other hand, he evokes the uncredited words of a great philosopher – he believes it was Chris Sale, the original White Sox-to-Red Sox lefty ace – to put this baseball thing in perspective.
“As soon as you think you got it, it’s gone,” says Crochet. “As soon as you think it’s gone, you found it.
“It’s just like an endless cycle of that.”
Not a bad distillation of Crochet’s past several years. He’s steadfast in crediting Tennessee pitching coach Frank Anderson and other staffers in Knoxville for his drive and mentality.
When the White Sox hired Brian Bannister – integral to the 2018 Red Sox’s championship – as their senior adviser of pitching, he went to work on Crochet. They worked doggedly before and during the ’24 season on a sinker and cutter, Bannister suggesting a grip adjustment on the latter, while the sinker took off midway through last season.
“You never stop tinkering, which can be a problem,” says Crochet, “but thus far it’s worked out.”
Crochet also credits the White Sox’s handling of his situation last season. GM Chris Getz, formerly their director of player development, listened earnestly when Crochet asked for a shot at the rotation. They managed his innings safely and wisely.
And then shipped him to a team with playoff hopes and wherewithal to secure his financial future.
“I give a great deal of credit to the White Sox,” says Crochet. “Thankfully, I had a relationship with (Getz) prior to him taking over the GM role. He was in all those conversations where it was talked about starting in the future.
“That was loosely the plan, if I was healthy and things of that nature. Then I wasn’t exactly healthy, but I was like hey, I’m kind of tired of waiting. Let me give this a shot and I think I could be healthier in the long term as well.
“Thankfully, he was on board. I don’t know if he saw it going as well as it has, but he at least led me to believe he saw it and that gave me confidence pursuing the new role. He was always very good to me.”
Crochet is now all grown up, in every sense: At 26, he carries 245 pounds on his 6-foot-6 frame, and a deceptive delivery gives even more hop to his 96-mph fastball that fronts a nasty five-pitch mix.
He gives pause when asked to put what he’s accomplished in perspective, knowing there are starts remaining and playoff berths to solidify. Yet the rapid rise belies the uncertainty he faced not that long ago.
“And now he’s an ace,” says Giolito, “he’s a top guy in the league and he’s going to be that way for a long time. So it’s awesome to see.”