The Red Sox may not be getting Garrett Crochet back tomorrow, but there’s still a real path for him to matter before the season runs out.
Boston has been without its ace since April 25, yet The Athletic’s Jen McCaffrey reported that the club is still holding out hope for a late-season return. Crochet, according to McCaffrey, is aiming to be ready for the postseason after restarting his shoulder rehab.
“The Red Sox are still hoping to get Garrett Crochet back late in the season (he’s aiming to return in time for the postseason after restarting his shoulder rehab),” McCaffrey wrote.
That matters because Boston is in the thick of the race right now. The Red Sox are 55-51 and, if the season ended today, would own the No.
2 American League Wild Card spot. Of course, the season doesn’t end today, and Boston’s recent surge only buys so much breathing room.
The club has been the hottest team in baseball over the last month, but the job now is to keep that pace while other AL teams keep pushing for the same postseason real estate.
Crochet’s return would change the conversation in a hurry if he can come back looking anything like he did last season. In his first year with the Red Sox, he finished second in American League Cy Young Award voting and posted a 2.59 ERA across 32 starts.
Even without him, Boston’s pitching has been strong all year. But the group has gotten a little thinner lately after the trade of Connelly Early to the Washington Nationals, and Mead going on the Injured List with a fractured wrist doesn’t help matters either.
Crochet offered a positive update in mid-July when he spoke to Red Sox on SI about where things stood in his recovery.
“I feel like I'm making a ton of progress,” Crochet said on July. “Started staying back from road trips about a month ago, just so I could kind of be the priority of the training staff. ...
So, that's the way that I'm going about it right now. And like I said, I feel like I'm making good progress.
It's just a matter of the spot that I was coming in at. I got a lot of ground to make up in terms of rotator cuff strength in general, so that's what I'm hammering.”
McCaffrey’s reporting suggests that progress has continued. Boston still has 56 games left, and with the way the team has reshaped its season over the last month, it’s firmly in the mix even with Mead on the shelf. If Crochet gets back and pitches like the ace he was last year, the Red Sox suddenly look a lot more dangerous in the American League.
A rotation with Crochet at full strength, along with Sonny Gray, Ranger Suárez, Payton Tolle and Jake Bennett all performing the way they have this season, would give Boston a real chance against most of the league.
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