- Red Sox’s Garrett Crochet Loses Ground to Tigers’ Tarik Skubal In Cy Young Race
Crochet is bidding to be Boston’s first Cy Young winner since 2016
Through no fault of his own, Boston Red Sox ace Garrett Crochet is watching his Cy Young Award chances slip away.
That’s because Detroit Tigers left-hander Tarik Skubal, the reigning AL Cy Young winner, continues to set himself apart on the mound.
Skubal lowered his ERA to 2.32 and added 10 strikeouts in Detroit’s 1-0 win Tuesday over the Houston Astros. In doing so, he became the first pitcher with 200 strikeouts this season. Crochet is a close second with 196.
Crochet and Skubal are tied for the most innings pitched in the AL (159 1/3). But Skubal holds the edge between the two in WAR (5.9 to 4.8), WHIP (0.87 to 1.07) and K/9 (11.3 to 11.1)
Crochet is trying to become the first Red Sox pitcher to win the Cy Young Award since Rick Porcello in 2016.
As for Crochet, he’s scheduled to return to the mound Saturday at Yankee Stadium for the third game of a four-game set this weekend in the Bronx.
The Red Sox woke up Wednesday one game behind the Yankees in the American League Wild Card standings following Tuesday’s night’s 4-3 loss to the Baltimore Orioles. Boston has lost three straight while New York has won four in a row to surge past the Red Sox in the standings.
Craig Breslow isn’t optimizing the Red Sox roster, as three dismal losses at home show
The final-quarter of the season is not the time to worry about roster flexibility; it could cost the Sox a playoff spot.
On Friday the Red Sox returned home from a 2-4 road trip against the Padres and the Astros, marking the end of a month-long gauntlet where the team played the division-leading Astros twice and each of the three division leaders (at the time they played them) in the National League. At 66-56, only 40 games were remaining, approximately 3/4 of the way through the season. The team held on to the top Wild Card spot, which, if you’re not going to win your division, is an essential position to be in as you would host ALL three games of the Wild Card series at Fenway Park.
At this point in the season, you should know everything that you need to know about your team. Garrett Crochet had a start skipped in July, no problem. Greg Weissert and Brennan Bernardino needed to have their workload reduced in recent weeks due to overuse in the first half of the season, which is understandable. But by now, the extra time off around the All-Star break should be a thing of the past, and the Best-26 should be in Boston. That has not been the case during this pathetic home stand.
The slew of questionable moves started on August 1st, when the team sent Bernardino to the minor leagues and kept Jorge Alcala on the major league roster, presumably because Bernardino still had minor league options. Bernardino had not given up a run since June 27th, a span of 13 innings over 11 appearances. Unlike with Weissert, who got extra rest in July at the major league level, Bernardino would not be allowed to be recalled for 15 days (unless there was an injury). Roster flexibility is great in April and May, but it shouldn’t matter much in August. Alcala was designated for assignment anyway on August 5th, after numerous appearances that forced unnecessary usage of closer Aroldis Chapman,
