Big Blow to Red Sox As 'Most Indispensable Player' Heads to IL

A tough break for the Boston Red Sox, who have lost their "most indispensable player"—Garrett Crochet—to the injured list with left shoulder inflammation.

Garrett Crochet has been placed on the 15-Day IL with left shoulder inflammation pic.twitter.com/UbRhUxAm0y
— Talkin' Baseball (@TalkinBaseball_) April 29, 2026

As Sean McAdam writes in MassLive, the Crochet injury is the "latest wrong turn for a Red Sox team trying to get back on track...

"Garrett Crochet is only the most indispensable member of this roster. He may only pitch once every five days, but no player has a more outsized impact on their success than the staff ace.

"What’s next? Locusts? Festering boils?" McAdam pondered.

Crochet is 'pretty confident' it's only a minimum IL stint

As for Crochet himself, he says he is “pretty confident, in this moment,” that he’ll only require a minimum stay on the IL. He says he grinded it out at the end of his last start and felt fatigue afterwards. Not that it affected his performance in that outing against the Orioles. He posted six shutout innings and struck out seven.

“Just some fatigue I was feeling in my last start," said Crochet. "It just makes more sense to get ahead of it now so I’m not playing catch-up the rest of the season.

“It’s tough. Talked to Bres (Chief Baseball Officer Craig Breslow) and Brandon (head athletic trainer Brandon Henry) yesterday about trying to push through and ultimately, what good is that doing for the team if I’m just kicking the can down the road?”

The problem is that Crochet now joins a long list of Red Sox pitchers in the infirmary, along with Sonny Gray, Kutter Crawford, Patrick Sandoval and Johan Oviedo.

Crochet, the Cy Young runner up last year, has had an up and down season. Despite three dominant starts, a 10-run disaster in Minnesota has left his ERA at 6.30.