CHICAGO — From the perspective of a manager, there’s nothing quite like the roller coaster ride of a 162-game regular season in Major League Baseball.
The number of problems, situations and decisions that are made involving 26 (and then later in the season, 40) players on a roster can be as mind-numbing as they seem daunting at times, only for the vast majority of them to be washed away with the sands of time once the season is up.
Monday could be chalked up as one of those conundrums for White Sox manager Pedro Grifol, who was busy navigating the unknown, a-k-a Garrett Crochet on his maiden voyage as a starting pitcher.
In his Crochet turned in an admirable performance Monday that was indicative of the starting pitcher he can become — Five innings pitched with two earned runs on two hits, one walk and seven strikeouts after throwing 77 pitches, 53 for strikes.
Where the conundrum came into play was at the end of the fifth inning.
Apart from one “honey hole slider” that turned into a two-run home run, he had executed his pitches well all afternoon, keeping the Minnesota Twins lineup off balance and retiring the last 11 batters he faced before being relieved by right-handed pitcher Brad Keller.
“I was frustrated, just because of the road trip that we just went on. I took part in wearing out the bullpen a good bit so, I felt like today was a good chance for me to save them,” Crochet said. “I mean, I had a long second, but I was able to be efficient after that and that was kind of what was going on in my mind was, it’s time that I do my part and I get through six.”
Crochet pitched only seven total innings across two starts on the White Sox’s previous road trip. He gave up seven runs in three innings at the Philadelphia Phillies on April 19, and surrendered five runs in four innings at Minnesota on April 24.
During postgame media availability, it was clear the competitor inside Crochet wanted to go back out for the sixth inning, but given where he is at in his career as a starting pitcher, Grifol erred on the side of caution.
“We’re treading in uncharted waters. I say that all the time,” said Grifol, who also adamant about not irresponsibly driving Crochet’s pitch count up in the name of preserving Chicago’s bullpen.
“He did a really good job today,” said Grifol. “He had 70-some pitches already [and] we had Keller so, it was kind of the perfect storm for us. We’ve got to get Keller on the mound too.
“It was good for Keller to get Crochet out of there and in a shorter start.”
Keller came in and pitched 1.2 scoreless innings in his White Sox debut, but up until this season, Crochet had only served as a reliever out of the bullpen. His career high in innings pitched across a single season was 54.1 in 2021, when he made 54 appearances for the White Sox.
So far this year, Crochet has made seven starts and pitched 34.2 innings. If he went on to make 28 starts at the same average amount of innings per start, he would pitch around 138.2 innings, nearly triple his career high.
“It just turned into a situation where three out of four guys were righties and it was good for Keller,” Grifol said. “At the same time, we take advantage and short start Garrett a little bit and not expedite that threshold, whatever that threshold is going to be at some point down the road.”
“I understand that they’re protecting my best interests so, I’ve just got to have faith in them in that regard,” Crochet said. “I’m just going to keep pitching until the ball is taken out of my hand. That’s all I can do as a player.”