You could easily argue that the best pitcher in baseball at the moment is a former Tennessee baseball star. Garrett Crochet, a former Tony Vitello Era southpaw, has parlayed a breakout regular season with the Boston Red Sox into one of the finest postseason outings in the franchise’s history. The result was a game one 3-1 win over Boston’s arch nemesis, the New York Yankees, in the wild card round in the Bronx.
Crochet went 7.2 innings before handing the ball to All-Star relief pitcher Aroldis Chapman. The flamethrowing lefty got out of the inning despite Crochet leaving him one on base. This set up Crochet to earn the win in his first postseason start.
In the wildcard victory, Crochet allowed just four hits and one run as he went nearly eight innings. The only mistake was a solo shot allowed to Anthony Volpe. He settled in quickly after the early miscue to strike out a total of 11 batters without walking or hitting any. He threw 117 pitches in the game.
Crochet entered the game with an 18-5 win-loss record from an All-Star regular season. He sat with a 2.59 ERA while tossing an MLB-high 255 strikeouts. His WHIP was at 1.03, as well. These stats give him a case to win the Cy Young, though he sits in second in betting odds behind the Detroit Tigers’ Tarik Skubal.
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This is Crochet’s first season with Boston after he earned a massive off-season contract worth $170 million over six years. His previous four seasons were spent with the White Sox, where he came out of the bullpen until his final year. In 2024, he was named an All-Star while posting a 3.58 ERA on one of the worst teams in MLB history.
Crochet is from Ocean Springs, Mississippi, and was selected in the 34th round of the 2017 MLB Draft. He opted to head to Knoxville instead, over Texas and Tulane. As a freshman, he threw in 16 games while starting in 11. He was tied for second on the team with five wins and was second in strikeouts at 62. The strikeout mark ranked fifth in program history for a freshman season at the time.
As a sophomore, he helped Vitello make the postseason, where the Vols lost in the Chapel Hill Regional. Crochet finished with a 4.02 ERA and 5-3 record in 18 appearances and six starts. Opponents hit just .268 off of him that year.
His junior season was cut short due to COVID-19. He started in his only appearance, where he went 3.1 innings while allowing no runs on two hits and striking out six batters. He was drafted with the 11th pick of the following draft by the White Sox.
