They say there is no good news. Google tells me that this quote is attributed to James Howell, a 16th century writer and politician, but I disagree. I attribute it to Sully and Murph, two thoughtful Red Sox fans through whose lens I like to interpret Boston sports stories. I mean, COME ON. Last week, Sonny Gray hit IL with a hamstring injury. Over the weekend, the Sox fired manager Alex Cora, along with a significant portion of his coaching staff. While the echoes of that momentous decision are still reverberating around town, now there’s this: Boston has placed staff ace Garrett Crochet on the IL for 15 days with shoulder inflammation. Wow. The Sox can’t catch a break.
Crochet’s IL placement follows a disappointing start to his season. In six starts, he had three surprising games and three clunkers. In his last time out, he put together one of his best starts of the year: six innings, seven strikeouts, and no earned runs against the Orioles. But towards the end of that trip, his pace slowed down considerably. Despite sitting 95-96 mph in the first innings, he was down to 91-93 by the end of his first start.
Crochet told MassLive’s Christopher Smith that he felt fatigue in his shoulder when he started, and he doesn’t think it’s a serious injury. “I was able to overcome (fatigue) there at the end.
Boston’s injury prognosis is similarly optimistic. Interim manager Chad Tracy said he expects a short IL stay for Crochet. “I think there is confidence in that, but obviously don’t hold me to that,” he said. “We have to see how he responds, but I think everyone feels confident that it will be.” There are a lot of words to wrap around that statement, for sure. But I think that just goes to show that Tracy is a reasonable actress. Pitcher injuries are notoriously difficult to assess, and to say that Crochet will be back as soon as he’s eligible is unbelievable. That’s not how the odds work.
Crochet’s fitness was a topic of frequent discussion when the Red Sox traded him after the 2024 season. After starting in college, he broke into the big leagues as a reliever, dealt with multiple serious injuries, and threw just 97 2/3 innings, across all levels, from 2020-2023. He emerged as a starter in 2024, but was largely shut down in the second half of the season, not going past four innings pitched after the All-Star break. And then, seemingly out of nowhere, he led the AL in innings pitched in 2025, with 205 1/3, second most in the majors.
With that, it makes sense to think of Crochet’s shoulder fatigue as a result of the heavy workload of the past year. The Sox brought him along slowly this spring, and Crochet noted that his strength didn’t recover as much as he had hoped during his regular season build-up. That seems completely believable to me. The boy just took on the biggest task in his life. It’s not a leap that his arm may slowly recover.
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Considering that, this IL position can help manage Crochet’s load somewhat. If his arm can only handle, say, 180 innings this year, or maybe 25 starts, or whatever unit you want to put him in, giving him more rest early in the season to get the best out of him over time seems wise. But alas, things are not that simple. Baseball Prospectus‘ The recovery dashboard averages IL duration for injuries initially diagnosed as shoulder sprains between one and two months, based on IL exposure over the decade. Of the 48 players who entered the IL by that name in 2025 (excluding Lucas Erceg, who was placed on the IL with less than 15 days left in the season), only three returned after 15 days.
In other words, Crochet and Boston can hope for the best, but they also have to plan for the worst, or at least the worst possible outcome. Fortunately for the Red Sox, their roster is worthy of such an occasion. As I wrote in my review of their season, baseball executive Craig Breslow prioritized depth in his unusual signing winter. The Red Sox rotation is ranked first in the Positional Power Rankings, and while Crochet was a big part of that, the bigger part is that the team has gone deep with major league-level options.
That depth has already been severely tested. Crochet is the third starter in our first season projected Opening Day rotation to make it to the IL, joining Gray and Johan Oviedo. The other two starters – Kutter Crawford and Patrick Sandoval – are still recovering from injuries suffered last year. Bryan Bello has an ERA over nine and a FIP approaching eighth. Ranger Suarez, another major offseason acquisition, has double the ERA of any Sox starter this year.
But think how much worse this would have been without Suarez. Think how bad it would have been if Payton Tolle and Connelly Early weren’t there to give the team a solid top three score even with Crochet and Gray on the shelf. This is a great lesson that says you can never have too many throws. Jake Bennett, acquired in an offseason trade, is expected to start in place of Crochet on Friday. He was a surprise in Triple-A to start the season — and wasn’t even among the 10 names we listed on Boston’s depth chart entering the year. It’s hard to overstate how much depth the Red Sox have.
Replacing “Garrett Crochet” with “deep” is still a big drop, of course. You can talk all day about how the Red Sox have fended off injury, but they’re still 12-19 and already eight games back in the division. They had the worst rotation in baseball this year, and their ace is now in IL. Their major replacement options are the amazing silver lining, but you can’t have silver linings without dark clouds.
Our pitching problems stopped the Red Sox by two percentage points when Crochet entered the IL. But they are already down 26 percent since the start of the season. In that sense, a more appropriate saying might be “the straw that broke the camel’s back.” It’s one thing to lose your ace, and it’s another to lose your ace after playing so badly that you’ve already fired your manager and half of your coaches.
Even the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry. I’m sure Breslow and company entered the season with some concern for Crochet’s health, but even if they hired a fortune teller, “Crochet gets hurt after all our trades, our offense collapses, and we’re firing our manager in April” is not the kind of thing you can plan for.
It’s entirely possible that we’ll look back on this injury as Boston’s season ends. When you fall so far behind in the standings and lose your best player, the news writes itself. It’s also possible he’ll come back after a short IL season and lead the playoffs. That’s what’s so great about sports; you never know what’s going to happen until it happens. But while I’m not afraid to point out front office decisions I disagree with, I don’t think you can go wrong with Breslow’s process this time around.
Before the year started, Boston was the major league team that was in the best position to avoid injury. But apparently, there is none this it’s in good shape, especially when the rest of the team isn’t helping to pick it up bit by bit. To close this quote-filled article with one of the classics of recent times, you can’t predict baseball, Suzyn.
