Boston Red Sox Ace Garrett Crochet has been out of action since Apr. 25 due to a lat strain. And even though there was hope that he would just need one stint on the 15-day injured list, that's clearly not the case.
The Red Sox placed Crochet on the 60-day injured list on June 5, and according to the man himself, his injury “is a lot worse than what we thought" initially (h/t Peter Abraham of The Boston Globe). Additionally, the Mississippi native has "no idea" when he'll be able to play catch and take another step in his recovery.
The Red Sox' season has been a big disaster so far
Crochet's injury update is the cherry on top of what has already been a mess of a season for the Red Sox.
With a 27-39 record, they are dead-last in the AL East (and are 3.5 games behind the fourth-place Baltimore Orioles), and only the Los Angeles Angels (27-42) rank behind them in the entire AL. Boston's offense has been its biggest downfall all season (it ranks last in the majors with 52 home runs and 248 RBIs while ranking fourth-worst with a .376 SLG and fifth-worst with a .688 OPS, according to MLB.com).
On top of that, they have a mostly incompetent front office that doesn't seem to be getting better anytime soon, have dealt with injuries to multiple key players (namely Crochet and Roman Anthony, who also probably isn't returning any time soon), and are stuck in this "not good enough to buy but not quite bad enough to sell... yet" dilemma ahead of August's trade deadline.
The Red Sox were 89-73 last year and made it to the playoffs, and they were at least 81-81 the season before. This Red Sox team is on pace to finish 66-96, which would be their lowest winning percentage (.407) since the 1923 season (61-91-2, .401 winning percentage).
The Red Sox aren't even fun to watch, either
If you're going to be a bad team, you better be fun to watch. And if you're not going to be fun to watch, then you better be winning games. The Red Sox are both a bad team and a boring team.
Their offense has no explosiveness or power, they're not electric on the bases (their 45 stolen bases rank 17th-best), and outside of guys like Payton Tolle, Connelly Early, and maybe Ceddanne Rafaela, there aren't any young and exciting players that are worth monitoring either (Anthony remains on the shelf, and Marcelo Mayer has looked like a bust so far).
There is still a ton of baseball left, but the Red Sox haven't given their fans any reason to genuinely be excited about where this team is headed. And now that Crochet is going to be out for even longer, it seems like things are going to get worse before they get better.
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