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. They’d originally released a lineup without Roman Anthony, presumably to get him consecutive rest days — the Sox are off tomorrow — after his recent struggles with back pain. They’ve since released an amended lineup with Anthony atop the order and Jarren Duran out. Eaton’s recall to the roster gives interim manager Chad Tracy a full contingent of four bench options even if the Sox are trying to get Duran a breather for a couple days.
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.
Or some ‘tussin.
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.
GaSox – Crochet got rocked March 21 vs Braves and April 1 vs Astros, both those games came before the 107 pitch start. So I honestly believe his physical issue goes back at least to March 21.
Yes crossing my fingers, we cannot afford to lose him especially with Crawford/Sandoval/Oviedo out of the picture and Bello sucking and Gray continuing to be injury prone and Tolle having a similar 2nd-game decline as last year.
On the bright side, I’m loving Ranger and Early!
FPG – I mean to be fair saying something is up each time the Ace gets rocked isn’t Nostradamus level insight lol. Let’s just hope it’s something minor 🙏🏻 I still think the baseball gods are pleased that Cora is out of MLB… for the moment. Was a bummer the offense couldn’t keep it rolling last night but my positivity level is still way up from a week ago
Sean – I had a lot of people, here and elsewhere, insisting I was wrong about a health issue and insisting it was just mechanical and pitch selection, basically regurgitating what Cora and Crochet were saying. That’s the only reason I feel vindicated again. LOL
Crochet just admitted when he skipped his start in ST that could have been the first sign of this inflammation.
He also alluded to what we were saying about him trying to pitch through the injury, saying it doesn’t make sense for him to “continue kicking the can down the road”. And he’s right.
FPG: Crochet said he was healthy. Just because he is hurt now does not mean he has been hurt all along.
FPG – gotcha! And yes good call.
Sean – Thanks!
On the postgame Lenny made a good point, because he’s not going to be throwing off a mound he will probably be out longer than 15 days.
Man I really hope you’re paying attention to Franklin. What he is doing is otherworldly. Mookie 2014 vibes. So much fun to watch. Pretty confident he’s cracking top 10 lists across the boards and putting himself in the Leo De Vries/Jesus Made tier. I really think we see a little bit of him in August and a debut next year at 21 years old.
Maybe he would feel better if they gave him an extension to his contract?
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
TJ? Could be headed toward that. Forget the arm fatigue stuff.
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.
Look at Houck in 2024. It’s a very similar scenario.
Huge jump in IP. Then had some shoulder inflammation in September. Then 2025 rolls around and he struggles, has elbow issues and eventually needs TJ.
Here’s your case study. Bennett is 25 years old and is at AAA. He has an ERA of 0.86. I assume that means he has been pitching well. Yet, he has 5 starts and only 21 innings!!! This is not a teenager in rookie ball. He is supposed to be prepared for the Majors. Barely averaging 4 innings when pitching well is a JOKE!!! What’s wrong with the coaching!!! No wonder there are so many injuries when these young pitchers arrive. They have not been properly prepared.
stymeedone: You did no studying for your supposed case study. Let’s look at Jake Bennett’s 5 AAA starts this year (it did not take long to look at the game logs):
1. 3 IP, 59 pitches, 1 run
2. 5 IP, 71 pitches, 0 runs
3. 5.1 IP, 71 pitches, 1 run
4. 3 IP, 26 pitches, 0 runs – game suspended due to weather
5. 4.2 IP, 68 pitches, 1 run
So, what do we see here? Bennett has 5 starts. The first start of the year was kept short and another start was cut short by weather. Other than that, he is averaging 5 IP per game and 70 pitches per game. That may be a bit light or it may be just fine for the first month of the season. Your conclusion that this is a joke and bad preparation is obviously wrong.
👏🏻
God I hope you’re wrong but the parallels are scary.
Call up Kyle Harrison….oh wait!
Babe Ruth too?
Passed away in 1948
Harrison has pitched 23 innings all year, and people are acting like he’s Cy Young.
Good grief….Need pitching not an inept 3B Caleb durbin
Do you always judge players on 4 week sample sizes? If so, that’s dumb.
Harrison has started 42 games with a career ERA of 4.16.
Durbin was third in rookie of the year voting last year.
Maybe give it until the end of June?
Good grief….look at your previous remark…”Harrison has pitched 23 innings all year, and people are acting like he’s Cy Young.” Looks like you judged in 4 weeks of this year. It’s probably a good time to stop.
Actually, my comments were consistent. I’m talking about how ridiculous it is to judge a player based on small sample sizes and suggesting it will take a few more months at minimum to judge this, or any other trade.
.
Do you need me to slow things down for you? What don’t you understand?
Let’s do an exercise to help you understand. . Before this season Harrison had pitched around 200 innings.This season he has pitched 23. His ERA was around 4.50 in the 200 prior innings; in 23 innings this year, it’s 2.28
What is a better indicator of future performance? 200 innings, or 23.
Take your time. You can use a calculator if you want.
Guess they should have given up on Clemens?
Year 1 – 133 innings with a 4.32 ERA.
Also as most would say here, ERA is not the best indicator of a pitcher’s performance. Try FIP or Sierra!
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?
GaSox – If an opponent knows you’re dealing with a physical issue, they will capitalize on it. They will be more confident, more aggressive, look for less fastballs.
Now I’m not saying it would necessarily impact every start, we have no idea if he’s taking anything (shots, pills, etc) or doing something in between starts to deal with it. But it could certainly crop up every other game.
Remember Lackey? He pitched like crap all season, then right after it ended he went under the knife. Same thing with Crawford & Houck, etc.
As far as whether or not Crochet should have continued starting games or throwing high velo or throwing over 90 pitches, we have no idea. We don’t have access to his medical updates. But he’s already pitched on extra rest all season, right?
I get it when it’s done for gamesmanship purposes like GA said, but to run him back out for multiple starts now when they know he’s not right is straight up malpractice.
Dirty – It’s a tricky situation.
He looked awesome his last game, right?
You try to pitch through some injuries, you don’t JD Drew it.
True, he did. But if he has to spend some time on the IL I suspect it’s not a surprise to them that he’s feeling bad even if he managed to grit it out for a couple starts. If it were late in the year I’d agree that you try to tough it out but this early in the year I prefer to be cautious and not let smaller injuries snowball into bigger ones.
Dirty – Totally agree! Yeah I’m not gonna worry until they use the word “imaging”.
Crochet was said he was healthy after the game where he gave up 10 runs. He may have just been hurt recently.
Now this is the Crochet that I remember with the White Sox. Looks like he is back to being himself.
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?
Fever definitely a major problem. Totally self inflicted.
60 innings is not huge.
Skip he’s pitched only 60 innings in his career? I guess this injury caught you completely off guard huh?
The OG comment was “Such a huge innings jump for him.” Its not a huge jump. He threw 146 innings the previous year and teams just don’t want jumps of more than 100%. Since he didn’t throw 290 innings, the Red Sox really had no worries about that 60 inning increase.
44% of pitchers spent at least some time on the IL during any given season since 2018, so I am never surprised by an injury to a pitcher.
30 innings is supposed to be the progression.
A pitcher like Crochet that has thrown 140-150 innings would be well within their progression to throw 200 innings.
For most, its about controlling the length of individual outings, not the total for the season once you reach that point. Crochet made 32 starts in both the 2024 and 2025 seasons. In 2025 he just went deeper in games.
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.
Fever- Considering what the best pitchers are going for these days I thought the extension seemed reasonable, especially after his performance last season. He has still looked like an ace at times this year, so I am not giving up on his season. Even if he had a an extended stay on the DL, I am not expecting it to end up like Sale with him being injured most of his contract. If they waited until the end of the season to extend him it would likely have been for considerably more money. If they lose him for an extended period their playoff hopes go from slim to none.
Uncle – Without question the only concern is health. That’s why we figured his struggles had to be injury-related, he’s way too talented to become this bad this soon.
Sure Crochet is high risk because of his history, but nobody can predict future health. Hopefully this is the only season he goes on the IL. It’s a little worrisome this has happened despite him constantly getting extra rest.
Looking ahead, right now the Sox are scheduled to face Skubal & Valdez again next week.
The good news, as of right now Sale won’t pitch in either of the two Braves series. Very, very fortunate there.
Fever- Like you had said previously, Suarez and Early are going to be the key until Crochet is back. They definitely have looked impressive recently.
Uncle – Yes Early and Suarez are my guys. I’m skeptical about Gray, and Tolle needs to prove himself as he had a poor 2nd start just like last year.
I’m intrigued about Bennett. He pitched only 3 innings in ST, but was hit hard. In the minors he’s been awesome.
It’s probably because if you have eyes, you can see he’s ridiculously good.
I guess some of the geniuses on the site seem to think that shoulder fatigue means his career is over hence why one of the smarter extensions the sox signed looks bad to them.
He wouldn’t pitch in the playoffs if he didn’t get an extension, what a teammate
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.
One of the many reasons Cora is no longer the manager.
Crochet said he was healthy after the 10 run game. When I saw him pitch after that he was having a control issue where he was missing the plate on his arm side. Lou Merloni made a point about the control issue. He may have only been injured recently.
Why leave him in?
================
Two philosophies in play.
1-You don’t want to blow out your BP completely.
2-You want your SP to throw a minimum amount of pitches every outing. Going from 100 to 30 back to 100, isn’t necessarily good.
For (2), couldn’t the SP just jog out to the bullpen and get a quick session in? I completely agree with the idea, but they don’t need to throw 100 pitches on the game mound.
I thought about that a lot around the WBC when people were complaining about pitcher usage, specifically Ranger.
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…
Better than him saying he’s not confident, don’t ya think?
That 6 years/$170M extension was *extremely* preemptive.
I am all for extending some guys and not making them wait out the whole pre-arb/arbitration process and then having to compete with yourself once they hit free agency.
But they had like THREE YEARS to decide on this kind of money, for a guy who has a history of not being able to stay healthy, whose body breaks down from pitching a normal season’s worth of starts, etc.
Look, I am no Red Sox fan, but a dumb jump-the-gun extension is a dumb jump-the-gun extension.
I’m basically categorically against extensions for pitchers more than 1 year before they’re set to hit free agency, because of the injury risk.
What do you think about jump the gun posts ?
Crochet got that extension after what, he pitched a good not great 2024 because the second half had limited innings. He turned that into a 28MM AAV extension. So if he pitched well and they waited until this summer to extend him, even if he was fully healthy, that number jumps to what like 35MM AAV? Like not a huge risk to wait a little bit.
But no, Breslow was smarter than everyone else and paid top dollar for a guy who had TJ as a reliever and who is now a SP without seeing if he can actually handle a starters workload.
TrillionaireTeamOperator
But they had like THREE YEARS to decide on this kind of money
=====================
Wrong.
Trill – Just think about these contract extensions (CBT$) …
Roman $16.25M/per thru 2033
Bello $9.2M/per thru 2029
Rafaela $6.25M/per thru 2031
Campbell $7.25M/per thru 2032
That’s $39M/per thru 2029
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying it’s already dead money and some can certainly rebound. But if they all continue to perform poorly, that’s a huge chunk of money the Sox are locked into for a very long time.
He dropped his arm slot a bit this year from last…I want to say about 4 degrees. I’ve heard that can cause shoulder issues. I know when I went closer to side arm from mostly over the top it was hurting my shoulder something fierce. Just a guess though.
He has dropped his arm angle from 43 degrees in 2023 to 32 degrees in 2026 in several stages. Lowering arm angle decreases shoulder stress and because of that decreases shoulder injuries. Baseball America did a great article on that in May 2025. There are several studies on the Orthopaedic Journal of Sports Medicine that you could read about it as well.
The reason for the decrease in shoulder stress is because the lower arm angle changes shoulder abduction and decreases lateral trunk flexion.
We still have Brayan Bello… so we’ll be fine
That’s the spirit!!
I still don’t know why Boston didn’t bring back Bregman and sign Alonso. The season is young but they can only blame themselves.
Yes, if they had Bregman and his .712 OPS for 35M and Alonso and his .660 OPS for 31M they’d be in first place.
So your idea is to spend $60M for a total of 0.7 bWAR instead of $18M for Contreras’ and Durbin’s 1.3 bWAR?
Maybe explain how those numbers work in our favor?
do you actually think bregman/alonso will be less productive than contreras/durbin over a full season?
mlb – With Bregman it was arrogance, they were convinced they could lowball him and refuse to give a NTC. He called their bluff.
With Alonso it was cheapness, they didn’t want to pay and instead pivoted to Contreras who is much cheaper.
FPG: Looks like a great move to pass on Bregman, but you call it arrogance. The money is better spent on Ranger Suarez. Looks like a great move to trade for Contreras (.861 OPS) for 1B and pass on Alonso, but you call it cheapness.
When it rains, it pours – The Curse of Don Orsillo is real.
No more Red Sox trades with White Sox for a LHSP or with Cardinals for anyone for awhile would be good way to start to repair things. LOL
I’m surprised it took the Sox this long to make the move. Even in his last start in Baltimore (I was there)- while the stats were great (including Cora getting the axe), he didn’t look quite right to me.
Luckily, the season is still young, and they are already far enough behind the Yanks, that they can take their time making sure he’s as close to 100% as he can be. No need to rush this- his overall/long term health matters more than the starts he ends up missing.
Hopefully he recovers very soon.
Now on another issue
Why is Bello still in the majors
Any other pitcher with a era over 9 is either sent to the pen or the minors
Is no where near what the so called experts predicted including Pedro.
Waste of money from the get-go
Sox – He’s definitely getting to the point of losing his spot in the rotation, especially when Gray returns.
6/55
TJ incoming
Because he has shoulder inflamation he’s going to suddenly need elbow surgery?
@acell10, there’s been plenty of pitchers who go on IL for shoulder inflammation or some other vaguely disclosed ailment only to have the team announce later that the inflammation was actually from overcompensating for ligament damage in the elbow, then they recommend the dreaded TJS
Crochet’s velo dropped sharply and that’s usually a clue something is wrong with the elbow. We’ll see. Hopefully I’m totally wrong and its really is just the shoulder
@third: lots of pitchers that have shoulder issues don’t. it’s a big leap for you to say Crochet is due for a second tommy john surgery and the velocity drop you’re talking is much more prounouced for this with elbow injures than we’ve seen from Crochet.
What a nightmarish season for the Red Sox, and it’s only April!
Just wait until May, our entire bullpen and half our infielders will probably go on DL
Curious – This team is tied for most losses before May with the 1996 team.
Ouch!
Yeah but that 1996 team did go on to win 85 games
Not expecting this historically bad lineup (currently slashing worse than 1962 Mets) to win 85 games, but that is an amount of wins that will bark at the playoff door in 2026, a season that features several disappointing teams and plenty of parity
Third – I totally agree. Right now the AL Central leader has a .500 record and the AL West leader is just one game over .500, that’s how bad the league is. The NL has really beaten up on the AL in interleague play thus far.
And in fairness to this year’s Red Sox team, they’ve played – and won – 5 more games in March/April than the 1996 Sox team.
May is gonna be a tough month though …. they’ve got Skubal & Framber again next week, 6 games vs the Braves and 4 games vs the Rays.
Let’s hope the Sox can beat up on the Astros, Guardians, Twins, Phillies and Royals.
The team was built around pitching and defense. 2 SP are injured and your #4 guy stinks. The team cannot slug it’s way to 9-7 wins, so they almost start to need to look at next year and beyond. I know it’s early to throw in the towel, but I can’t see this team playing at 97 win pace from here on out to grab a WC spot.