The American League East has always been the sport's most star-driven division, even when the standings don't always show it. The New York Yankees-Boston Red Sox rivalry alone has produced decades of this, but it's not just those two anymore.
The Toronto Blue Jays have peaked into a real contender, the Tampa Bay Rays are leading this year's race and continue to develop, and the Baltimore Orioles are always one prospect wave away from popping off again. With that much noise in one division, it's easy to lose track of just how much individual talent is walking around it.
Case in point: with Tarik Skubal now pitching for the Los Angeles Dodgers, this year's AL Cy Young race is shaping up to be a battle between two AL East arms, Cam Schlittler and Dylan Cease. That trophy is staying in this division no matter what. But for Red Sox fans, it's worth saying the obvious: if Garrett Crochet had stayed healthy all year, he'd be right in that conversation too, not watching it from the outside looking in.
A healthy Garrett Crochet would've made the 2026 AL Cy Young Award race more interesting
It's easy to forget just how dominant Crochet was in 2025. He went 18-5 with a 2.59 ERA across a league-leading 205.1 innings, struck out a league-best 255 batters, and finished as the AL Cy Young runner-up behind Skubal himself. Take a quick glance at his Baseball Savant page from that season and it reads like a cheat code, elite percentile marks across nearly every meaningful category a pitcher can be graded on. That's the version of Crochet the division rivals were supposed to get again in 2026.
Instead, he was clearly not right from the start, posting an ugly-looking 6.30 ERA across his first six starts before landing on the injured list on April 29 with a shoulder issue that turned into a lat problem after a setback in May. The strikeouts were still there (37 in just 30 innings), but the results were far from pretty, and Boston has been without its ace for basically the entire season since.
Here's where it gets exciting again, though. Crochet threw a bullpen session at Fenway this week, his second since resuming throwing, and interim manager Chad Tracy has been candid that a return this season likely means relief work, not a return to the rotation. Crochet has relief experience already from earlier in his career, and has shown flashes of pure domincance. In 72 bullpen appearances, he logged 73 innings with 85 punchies and 2.71 ERA. In his four postseason relief outings, he has a 0.00 ERA and has struck out 6 of the 14 batters he faced.
He's also made it clear he has zero ego about the role. With Boston fighting to hold onto that second Wild Card spot, a healthy Crochet coming out of the bullpen in high-leverage October moments would be about as fun a development as this fanbase could ask for down the stretch.
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