Good news: Red Sox fans get to watch the two best starting pitchers in the American League this weekend when the Detroit Tigers come to town.
Bad news: The pitchers miss each other by one game and Boston must find a way to beat the two-time defending Cy Young Award winner.
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Garrett Crochet and Tarik Skubal will each take the mound. Last season, they represented the class of left-handed pitching in the sport. They each set the tone of excellence for their respective rotations.
There’s only one problem: We really have to miss this matchup?
Here are four thoughts on the excellent southpaws before the Tigers and Red Sox begin a four-game set on Marathon weekend.
So Close
Skubal will likely pitch Saturday’s contest against Brayan Bello while Crochet will take the ball for the Red Sox in the Sunday matinee.
Despite spending multiple years in the same division when Crochet pitched for the Chicago White Sox, the stars have only faced off against each other once.
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Flashback to Opening Day 2024 and it was the pitchers’ duel baseball deserved. Crochet and Skubal each tossed six strong innings with just eight combined hits allowed and 14 total strikeouts.
The lone run against Crochet came when Andy Ibanez plated Javy Baez on a third-inning sacrifice fly.
Baseball deserves to see this matchup once again, especially as the reigning top-two finishers in last year’s American League Cy Young Award race.
ERA Crusher?
When it’s all said and done, there may be no greater winner from Crochet’s disastrous start against the Minnesota Twins.
The Red Sox starter imploded in the second inning Monday and exited after allowing 10 earned runs to the best team in the American League (so far). That performance ballooned Crochet’s ERA to 7.58 (!!!).
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That could take him months to bring that number back down to Earth and legitimately return him to award conversations. Skubal is at 2.22 through his first four starts and could now very easily walk the red carpet to his third consecutive Cy Young win, though other AL contestants will surely arise.
All that in a contract year to boot (more on that later).
Revisiting 2025
Skubal won the Cy Young Award last season with the ERA title (2.22 ERA) and the league-leading WAR (6.5). He won 13 games to Crochet’s 18 (we don’t need to insert the lecture on the declining value of pitcher wins) while the Red Sox ace led the sport with 255 strikeouts and 205.1 innings pitched.
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Red Sox Discount?
Boston wasted no time locking in Crochet for the future after acquiring him in a December 2024 trade with the White Sox. In the first week of the 2025 regular season, Crochet signed a six-year, $170 million extension through 2031 with an opt-out after 2030.
Getting the second best starting pitcher in the American League at $28 million per year already feels like a win for the Red Sox. That should resonate even more when Skubal likely breaks the bank in free agency next winter.
Extension talks with Detroit seem to be over and Skubal will walk at the perfect time, especially after a potential three-peat Cy Young performance we alluded to early. If he exceeds $40 million per year, the Red Sox can have a rare reason nowadays to pat themselves on the back.
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