Garrett Crochet, the Red Sox ace who hasn’t pitched since late April due to injury, took a big step in his rehab earlier this week when he began a throwing program in Boston.
The goal is to rejoin the Red Sox for the stretch run next month and then potentially the playoffs if they make it.
And if that comes in a relief role, Crochet said Wednesday that he’s open to it.
“There’s no ego about it,” he told WEEI.com. “It’s something I’ve done before. Like I was just saying, any way possible I can help this team achieve the goal we set out in spring training, the goal that every team sets out to achieve. If I could help us achieve it, I don’t really care what the role is.”
Crochet pitched out of the bullpen in his first three seasons with the White Sox, then broke out as a starter for a Chicago in 2024 before being traded to Boston, where he finished second in AL Cy Young voting last year.
Ideally, he’d be starting again for Boston if he’s able to recover from a shoulder/lat injury that’s kept him off a big league mound since April 25. But a multiweek ramp-up period, akin to a full spring training, may prevent that.
“When it comes to throwing programs and buildup, I don’t know how many innings I’m going to be able to build up to. I haven’t taken like a true formal look at the throwing program,” he told WEEI. “Honestly, that’s still up in the air. That’s not really in my court. For me, I’m looking forward to helping this team in any way I can. I’ve been on the sidelines for three months, and they’ve been killing it, and it just makes me hungrier and hungrier to want to join and just contribute because these guys have stepped up and posted all year. It’d be nice to help.”
Speaking a day earlier, Red Sox manager Chad Tracy said there’s no rush on anything related to the left-hander.
“I think when you say, ‘Hey a guy has got a ball in his hand and he’s throwing like 50 or 60 feet,’ you realize it’s a little ways off, but the fact that he’s throwing ... you don’t know during the course as he goes along here, how it’s going to feel,” Tracy said. “So there’s still a lot of hurdles to climb.
“But the fact that he has the ball and is trying to [pitch], if everything goes well, certainly there’s a chance, but we just got to take it one step at a time and see how he feels as he goes.”
