The brightest star produced by Tennessee baseball in the Tony Vitello Era, pitcher Garrett Crochet, is going to miss some time early in the 2026 MLB season. The Boston Red Sox ace was placed on the 15-day injury list on April 29, forcing him to miss a couple of scheduled starts.
Crochet is going to miss this time due to shoulder inflammation. The plan is reportedly to get ahead of it, instead of dealing with it throughout the season and playing catch-up. He was optimistic that it wouldn’t be an extended stay on the bench, and he’d be able to return potentially after just the minimum 15 days.
“Just some fatigue I was feeling in my last start,” Crochet said in an MLB.com article. “I was able to grind through it there at the end, but it makes more sense to get ahead of now, so I’m not playing catch-up the rest of the season.”
As a result, the Red Sox recalled utility player Nate Eaton to fill out the roster. Though Crochet wasn’t scheduled to pitch on Wednesday anyway, Boston lost to the Blue Jays on the road in their first game without him.
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It’s been a shaky season to start for Crochet after he proved to be one of the best pitchers in the MLB a year ago. So far, he has posted a 6.30 ERA and a 3-3 record through six starts. Last season, Crochet was in contention to win the prestigious Cy Young Award. He notched a 2.59 ERA and an 18-5 record in 32 starts. He also struck out 255 batters in 205.1 innings pitched.
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 a 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.
