The Boston Red Sox shocked everyone on Monday by announcing that starting pitcher Lucas Giolito won't be available for the upcoming American League Wild Card Series against the New York Yankees. Giolito has been Boston's second-best starting pitcher in 2025, and his absence in a three-game series is a game-changer.
But as Boston fans reacted with understandable negativity to the Giolito news, not enough optimism arose about Giolito's obvious replacement, who has been tremendous so far in 2025.
With Garrett Crochet and (presumably) Brayan Bello locked in as Boston's starters for Game 1 and Game 2 at Yankee Stadium, Boston's obvious option to replace Giolito for a Game 3 start (if necessary) is 23-year-old rookie left-hander Connelly Early.
Red Sox have reason to feel confident about Connelly Early starting a playoff game
Connelly Early was carving up hitters all night in an electrifying MLB debut! pic.twitter.com/kMQmUpV19f
— MLB (@MLB) September 10, 2025
Though he’s only made four starts in the bigs since debuting on September 9, Early has impressed everyone in MLB in that timeframe, and the Red Sox are over the moon about his future. The former fifth-round selection (2023) announced his arrival to MLB with an electric 11 strikeouts in five innings against the Athletics in his debut, and he’s tallied a 2.33 ERA, 1.09 WHIP, and 29 strikeouts in 19 1/3 innings in a Red Sox uniform.
Early has already garnered the respect of the Red Sox clubhouse, as indicated by Crochet’s thoughts on the left-hander.
“The pitchability is beyond his years,” Crochet said of Early on Monday, per 98.5 The Sports Hub’s Tyler Milliken. “I think he’ll be a huge bolster to the staff in the postseason.”
Garrett Crochet, talking about his MLB journey, had some high praise for Connelly Early:
— Gabrielle Starr (@gfstarr1) September 29, 2025
“For me, it was, you know, I knew that I had the stuff to belong and that's kind of what I see in Early. When Early came up, it was a sense of comfortability in who he was, not in the…
Crochet even suggested that he sees some of himself in Early. “I knew that I had the stuff to belong and that's kind of what I see in Early,” Crochet said, per Boston Herald’s Gabrielle Starr. “When Early came up, it was a sense of comfortability in who he was, not in the boisterous way where he's being loud in the clubhouse, but just more so in that he knows who he is.“
While some may feel it's too early in Early's career to be handed the ball in a potential do-or-die Game 3 for Boston, it's actually a win-win situation for Early and the Red Sox. If Early pulls off a good performance, it would be an irreplaceable and immeasurably beneficial launchpad into stardom for the lefty, as such a moment would do wonders for his confidence moving forward in a way that nothing else could approach. On the flip side, if Early were to underperform, it would very logically and harmlessly be attributed to his youth.
While people will talk about there being immense pressure on Early, he'd actually be playing with house money in the Bronx.