The Red Sox have placed ace Garrett Crochet on the 15-day injured list due to inflammation in his left shoulder, per a club announcement. Utilityman Nate Eaton has been recalled from Triple-A Worcester to fill Crochet’s spot on the roster for the time being.
Crochet tells Christopher Smith of MassLive.com that he’s “pretty confident” he’ll be back after a minimum stay on the injured list. The 6’6″ lefty said he felt some fatigue during his last start, which prompted the team to take a cautious route and shut him down for the time being. He hasn’t stopped throwing, per Smith, so it seems the club also does not fear a lengthy layoff.
It’s been a strange start to the 26-year-old’s season. He’s turned in three quality starts — two of them scoreless six-inning gems — but also been hit hard on three occasions. In particular, Crochet was bludgeoned by the Twins in a visit to Target Field that saw him tagged for a career-worst 11 runs (10 earned) in only 1 2/3 innings. A drubbing that extreme, this early in the season, will take awhile to recover from — hence Crochet’s grisly 6.30 earned run average through his first six starts.
The average velocity on Crochet’s four-seamer and sinker is down this year, albeit not egregiously so. He’s down about 0.6 mph on the former (from 96.4 mph to 95.8 mph) and 0.8 mph on the latter (from 96 mph to 95.2 mph). It bears noting that Crochet’s velocity sat in a similar range through his first six starts last season but climbed as the season progressed. That brutal day in Minnesota featured his lowest single-game averages of any start this season (94.9 mph and 94.2 mph, respectively).
In swapping out Eaton for Crochet, the Sox will be playing a pitcher short today. However, they’re also getting Roman Anthony a day off ahead of tomorrow’s off-day — he’s been dealing with some back troubles recently — so Eaton affords interim manager Chad Tracy a “full” contingent of bench options.
Boston’s rotation for the weekend will need to be reshuffled. Crochet, Connelly Early and Ranger Suarez would’ve been lined up to take the mound had everyone remained on turn, but they’ll have some choices now. They could move Early and Suarez up to start Friday and Saturday, respectively, as tomorrow’s off-day would keep them on regular rest. Smith also noted last night that prospect Jake Bennett was scratched from yesterday’s start in Triple-A Worcester. Tracy told the Sox beat that the team was just keeping its options open with an off-day Thursday; the reason for keeping those options open is now much clearer.
Bennett, 25, would be making his major league debut if he gets the call for a spot start. Acquired in an offseason trade with the Nationals, he’s begun the season with a 0.86 ERA in five starts and 21 innings with Triple Worcester. Bennett’s 20.3% strikeout rate is below average, but he’s only walked 3.8% of his opponents this season. He’s never sustained that level of command in the past, and he’s currently benefiting from a minuscule .207 average on balls in play, but there’s no denying it’s been a strong start to his season.
Bennett is already on the 40-man roster, which surely works in his favor as well. If not this weekend, it seems likely he’ll make his debut at some point before too long. In addition to Crochet, the Red Sox also have Sonny Gray, Johan Oviedo, Kutter Crawford, Patrick Sandoval and Tanner Houck on the injured list.
no bueno
Oh noooooo
(Lt. SULU voice)
Oh-oh!
Game over man!
Nice knowing ya
Just rub some dirt on it. It’ll be fine.
He’s had some rough starts, might explain why he’s not his typical self. As if the Red Sox season wasn’t looking great already…
This is not good news.
cdc – hi!
How many times.
How many times did I say something is up with Crochet.
I said it after his last ST start.
I said it after his Minnesota start.
Wish I was wrong.
I still look back to that iirc 107 pitch start in 40s degree cold fenway that Cora the destroya put crochet through too soon, without proper build-up. I think thats where the issue started, not coras moronic leaving him in for the drubbing trying to save 2 measly outs from the BP.
Hopefully some rest and things will go back to normal.
I know he’s not a kid or anything – but they jumped his innings by 60+ innings year over year in 2025 (including playoffs) – That’s usually not good. I hope it’s just a short stint. Baseball is just better with its aces going strong (coming from a Jays fan).
he threw almost as many innings last season as he did in his MOB career prior.
Red Sock nation threw up in its mouth almost as much last night as it did in the summer on the cape prior
Just saw the update that apparently for now they are being cautious and he’s not expected to be on the IL long. Let’s hope that is true!
Dirty – Yeah he’s been pitching through it for over a month, so it’s probably not too serious …. no different than Oviedo. But it could definitely linger.
Call up Kyle Harrison….oh wait!
One last guy Cora got to lie to us about being healthy, for old time’s sake. </3
Don't cry because it's over, Red Sox Nation, let's smile that it happened.
Dirty – With injuries it’s okay to lie though, don’t want to tip off opponents.
Every team does it.
Fever, theres a difference between misleading to maintain leverage when trying to acquire depth to replace a banged up player, or, trick a club into preparing to face the wrong SP, and, ignoring that player’s injuries internally with the potential of changing a small issue into a bigger one by trotting the guy back out there and then mis-using him leaving him in games struggling and getting shelled whe. He’s clearly.not right…. no?
Insert Michael Scott yelling no meme
Michael Scott didn’t like memes?
Sucks to see but also not surprising. Such a huge innings jump for him.
It’s always something. They find a way to get hurt no matter what.
Shadow – You mean by using max velo much too often?
Uh oh
Sergio
I still can’t believe one nice season “earned” him 6 years and $170M. The exchange rate on that to Skubal would be 10x and a few hundred acres on the Moon and Mars.
vision – This is exactly why I was against the extension happening so soon. Ah well, at the very least we got one great year out of him.
Another hit to the already woeful Boston Red Sox. They needed Crochet to step up if they want to get back in it.
Spaghetti, Uh-Oh
Not much going right this season.
Grisly, lol.
The Minnesota start was a bit bizarre. Only 55 pitches, but 9 hits, 3 walks, 10 runs, 18 batters faced. Why leave him in?
Mike – Better yet, if his offspeed stuff wasn’t working in the Twins game …. why wasn’t he throwing the heater? This is why, exactly as I said.
Starts and ends with Cora.
Of course, had crochet been from Puerto Rico Cora wouldve treated him differently and that wouldn’t have happened.
Ruh-Roh.
I completely missed him getting traded to the Cubs yesterday.
Explains a lot about his rough start to the season
Crochet tells Christopher Smith of MassLive.com that he’s “pretty confident” he’ll be back after a minimum stay on the injured list
Famous last words uttered countless times by pitchers…
That 6 years/$170M extension was *extremely* preemptive.
I am all for extending some guys and not making them wait out the whole pre-arb/arbitration process and then having to compete with yourself once they hit free agency.
But they had like THREE YEARS to decide on this kind of money, for a guy who has a history of not being able to stay healthy, whose body breaks down from pitching a normal season’s worth of starts, etc.
Look, I am no Red Sox fan, but a dumb jump-the-gun extension is a dumb jump-the-gun extension.