After the Dylan Cease trade, the Opening Day starter spot was up for grabs. The immediate reaction was that Michael Kopech was going to start the game, as he is the longest tenured White Sox in the rotation. But, he was recently moved to the bullpen.
People also speculated that Mike Soroka or Eric Fedde could start that game, as they are both veterans that have pitched for more than a few years in the major leagues. Soroka is having the better spring, so it seems like he was the leader for the spot.
But today, the White Sox have made the surprising announcement that Garrett Crochet will be the Opening Day starter.
This is a shocking choice, not because of his talent, but because he has not fully transitioned to a starter yet. In fact, this will be his first ever major league start. Not only is that extremely rare, it hasn’t been done in over 100 years.
Crochet has been lights out this spring, as he has thrown nine scoreless innings in four appearances. He has given up just seven hits, walking none, while striking out 12. This is exactly what the White Sox were wanting out of Crochet this spring, and he has delivered.
The only problem with this is the fact Crochet has not been stretched out to starter innings yet. He has only thrown one game with more than two innings, as he threw three innings in his last start. But, his pitch count has not worked its way up above 20 pitches in any of his appearances according to MLB.com.
While he will still have a week or two to get stretched out, it’s looking like we might get 3-5 innings out of him, which isn’t atypical of the first start in a season for a pitcher. It’s likely he will be on a pitch count and someone will come in for long relief and try to eat up as much innings as they can.
The White Sox do have the day off after the opener, leaving an extra day of rest, so the pitcher who was scheduled to pitch 5th in the rotation could piggyback off Crochet and still be on schedule to pitch in five days. I’m not sure how the White Sox will handle it, but this should be a fun development to watch, as if Crochet can transition to a good MLB starter, the White Sox will be in a much better position than last year.
