NEW YORK — As the 2024 winter meetings came to a close, the Red Sox packaged four of their 10 best prospects and agreed to send them to the Chicago White Sox in exchange for starting pitcher Garrett Crochet.
Acquiring Crochet helped fill the sizable void in the rotation, the one generally reserved for a true ace, something the Red Sox had been lacking since the first few years of Chris Sale’s stay in Boston.
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In the previous three years, the Red Sox were without the kind of starting pitcher who would take the ball to start a Game 1 in a postseason series. Perhaps not so coincidentally, they didn’t qualify for a postseason series in 2022, 2023 or 2024.
Tuesday night, in Game 1 of the AL Wild Card series between the Red Sox and Yankees, Crochet’s presence on the mound as Boston’s starter will help validate everything they did to get him (the four prospects) and the $170 million they spent to extend him for another six seasons in the first week of the season.
“Certainly, as you think about what does it mean to be a bona fide ace,” said Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow, “you think about giving the ball to someone in Game 1 of a playoff series and feeling as confident as you can in their ability to go out and perform.
“The season has gone about as well as one could expect for Garrett and I know he’s super excited about taking the ball here (Tuesday). I would imagine (his teammates) are incredibly confident because they’ve seen what he was able to do all season and the way he was able to carry us every five or six days and at least from our perspective in the (front) office, there isn’t another guy that we would want to hand the ball to start Game 1 of the postseason.”
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Some of that belief, of course, has to be based on faith, since Crochet has never made a postseason start before. In both 2020 and 2021, early in his career with the White Sox, the lefty made two brief cameo appearances in the playoffs. His four outings, however, totaled just three innings.
Tuesday will be different.
“Completely different role” said Crochet Monday, “and now with my experience as a player and as a starter, I’m just going to try my best to treat it as another start. Obviously, the implications are a little bit bigger. But for me, there’s no need to put any excess pressure on it.
“There’s already a good lineup on the other side, so that’s enough pressure as it is.”
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Last year at this time, Crochet had just finished his first full year as a starter, stuck performing for a team which set a modern-day record of futility with 121 losses. Losing was habitual.
But internally, Crochet assumed he would be traded and finding himself in the Bronx, inserted into one of the game’s great rivalries, with everything on the line, doesn’t come as a surprise.
“I think I’ve always had a lot of self-belief,” he said, “and I’ve always wanted to be the guy who can throw Game 1 of a playoff series. So to be here now comes as no surprise.”
Looking ahead to the outing, Crochet allowed that he expected to feel like Tuesday’s assignment will be “fun, exciting,” while noting “it’s hard to know what my emotions will be like until it happens.”
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The stakes will be higher, but the setting won’t be foreign. He pitched at Yankee Stadium twice during the Sox’ two visits here during the season. And the lineup won’t be unfamiliar — he pitched against them two other times at Fenway, including earlier this month.
“I don’t want to say it’s ‘comfortable,’ because they’re a tough opposing lineup,” he said. “But there’s a sense of comfort there, and just knowing the faces I’m going to be going up against. So for me, it’s taking it one pitch at a time and trying to get as deep into the ballgame as I can.”
He’ll rely on that history and experience as he game-plans for Game 1.
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“I think that you’re always citing previous at-bats,” he said. “I have a lot of at-bats to cite. But at the end of the day, it’s what am I most confident in in the moment. It could be a pitch I haven’t thrown to a guy all year, but if I see an opening for it, I’m going to attack.”
Experienced or not on the October stage, Crochet maintains he won’t be nervous for his start Tuesday. Perhaps, given his arsenal and ability, it’s the Yankees who should be anxious.
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