Garrett Crochet Snaps Chicago White Sox's Historic Losing Streak as Trade Rumors Swirl

The Chicago White Sox bested the Boston Red Sox to bring their franchise-record 14-game losing streak to an end, thanks in large part to a gem from highly-coveted ace Garrett Crochet.

Jun 7, 2024; Chicago, Illinois, USA; Chicago White Sox pitcher Garrett Crochet (45) delivers against the Boston Red Sox during the first inning at Guaranteed Rate Field. / Matt Marton-USA TODAY Sports

The Chicago White Sox haven't had many reasons to celebrate in 2024, but Garrett Crochet gave them one Friday night.

The 24-year-old left-hander allowed one earned run in 6.0 innings against the Boston Red Sox, striking out 10 batters along the way. That set the stage for the White Sox to win 7-2, snapping their franchise-record 14-game losing streak.

Following his latest gem, Crochet is now 6-5 with a 3.33 ERA, 0.925 WHIP, 12.3 strikeouts per nine innings and a 2.7 WAR this season. He had never started an MLB game prior to 2024, previously going 3-7 with a 2.71 ERA across 72 relief appearances from 2020 to 2023.

Crochet's breakout season has kept Chicago afloat – at least, to the extent any one player can prop up a 16-48 team. The White Sox are 6-8 when Crochet takes the mound, compared to 10-40 when anyone else starts.

Crochet and fellow starting pitcher Erick Fedde are the only White Sox players with WARs above 0.9.

However, Crochet's name has popped up in trade rumors, most recently ones that have tied him to the San Diego Padres.

Crochet sat down with NBC Sports Chicago's Chuck Garfien earlier in the week, and the topic of a potential trade was central to the conversation.

"There's a business side of the game, obviously, that everyone's really aware of," Crochet said. "So when push comes to shove, I could expect moves to happen."

Asked specifically about hearing his name in the rumor mill, Crochet accepted how volatile the market but made sure to stick by the struggling White Sox.

"It's a huge compliment to every name mentioned in a trade," Crochet said. "I guess it's 50/50, but typically it's going to a team that's buying and a team that's competing at the deadline, so it's a huge compliment. But at the end of the day, if I go out there and I have one bad outing in a row, that can be completely derailed. And regardless of that or not, I love being with the team who drafted me. I think it's kinda everybody's dream to the team that drafts them and the team they debut with to kinda spend their whole career there. So when it comes to stuff like that, those conversations that occur, it's not really something that I've considered personally."

Talking to @ChuckGarfien, Garrett Crochet takes his name in trade rumors as a "compliment" but dreams of staying with the team that drafted him pic.twitter.com/RICMvTeIFq

— White Sox Talk (@NBCSWhiteSox) June 7, 2024

Crochet likened his time with the White Sox to his time at the University of Tennessee, where he pitched from 2018 to 2020. The Volunteers were in the midst of a 14-year NCAA tournament drought before Crochet helped them clinch a postseason berth in 2019, and they were 15-2 before COVID-19 shut the 2020 season down.

Chicago won the World Series in 2005 and finished atop the AL Central in 2021, but is an MLB-worst 77-149 since the start of 2023.

Trading Crochet would likely net the White Sox a solid return package, but the young lefty could also be their ace for years to come. He currently has two seasons of team control left after 2024, though, so contract extension talks could come into play here as well.

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