Where Red Sox Ace Garrett Crochet Ranks Among AL Cy Young Contenders

Close, but no cigar. At least not yet.

MLB.com has released its early projections for Cy Young Award voting. In the American League, it has Boston Red Sox ace Garrett Crochet running a distant third behind Detroit Tigers left-hander Tarik Skubal, the reigning Cy Young winner, and New York Yankees lefty Max Fried.

The ranking has Skubal receiving 37 first-place votes with the other two going to Fried, who’s in his first season with the Yankees.

Same goes for Crochet with the Red Sox, and according to MLB.com, he’s living up to expectations.

“Another spot in the top five goes to a dominant left-hander, with Crochet pitching like the Red Sox envisioned when they acquired him in an offseason blockbuster,” MLB.com’s Jared Greenspan wrote. “The 25-year-old leads all of baseball with 110 strikeouts, and he’s been a workhorse, too, leading the AL in innings (88) while fueling a Boston rotation that has otherwise struggled. Crochet’s 2.35 ERA would be a career best.”

The last Red Sox pitcher to win the Cy Young Award was right-hander Rick Porcello in 2016.

Hall of Famer Pedro Martinez easily took home the award in 1999 and 2000.

Long-time Red Sox ace Roger Clemens won three Cy Young Awards in Boston (1986, 1987 and 1991). Clemens also earned American League MVP honors in 1986.

Right-hander Jim Lonborg was the first Red Sox pitcher to win the Cy Young Award, claiming it in 1967 as part of Boston’s “Impossible Dream.”

Of course, the award is named after former Boston pitcher Cy Young, who earned 192 of his MLB-record 512 wins while pitching in Beantown from 1901 to 1908.

The last Red Sox pitcher to lead the league in strikeouts was Chris Sale, with 308 in 2017.

Crochet will return to the mound on Friday for the first game of a three-game series against the Yankees at Fenway Park.