Garrett Crochet engaged in an epic 12-pitch battle with Mookie Betts last week at Dodger Stadium.
The left-handed reliever could tell his slider wasn’t as sharp, but in the moment didn’t notice that his fastball velocity was down a tick.
As he delivered fastball after fastball, which Betts kept fouling off, Crochet thought, “I’m doing something right.”
In the aftermath of the June 15 outing, Crochet said he experienced “just regular, everyday soreness.”
“Most of the time when you are coming out of the bullpen, you are probably a little bit sore,” Crochet said Wednesday. “And that’s all I felt like it was.”
But he said he wasn’t bouncing back from the soreness and, “At that point I was just wasting a roster spot.”
Crochet went on the 15-day injured list Tuesday with left shoulder inflammation. While no timetable is established, Crochet hopes to be back in two to three weeks.
“I went to see (lead team) Dr. (Nikhil) Verma, under his advice, got a cortisone shot,” Crochet said. “Tested my strength before and after the shot. After the shot, it had improved just in that 30-minute time window. It kind of let us know it was inflammation in the back of the shoulder.”
The team’s first-round pick in 2020, Crochet is 0-1 with a 3.60 ERA and nine strikeouts in 10 appearances since being reinstated from the injured list on May 16. He missed all last season after undergoing Tommy John surgery.
“Ebbs and flows are to be expected,” Crochet said. “I think it kind of went hand and hand with that. Just getting after it every day for the past 14 months. Just something that is kind of to be expected throughout the process.”
Crochet said up until the last outing in Los Angeles, he felt he could pitch every day.
“Typically it’s a Day 2 soreness deal,” he said. “It was the day after the two innings (on June 13) in L.A., I felt really good the next day. It kind of felt like something I was able to pitch through.
“Saw the dip in velocity (from around 97 mph on June 13 to 94 mph on June 15). Up until that point, I felt as if I was recovering really well. I think it’s just a bit of workload management that we are kind of doing to this point. But yeah, hoping to get back out there in two to three weeks and ready to rock.”
Before Wednesday’s game against the Texas Rangers, Grifol provided injury updates on shortstop Tim Anderson (right shoulder soreness) and third baseman Yoán Moncada (lower back inflammation).
Grifol said Anderson, who last started Saturday in Seattle, could be back in the lineup for Friday’s series opener against the Boston Red Sox. The Sox are off Thursday.
Grifol said the Sox opted against an IL stint in Anderson’s case because they believe he’d be back before the required 10 days were up.
“And we also have value for him to do other things, like pinch-hit (as he did Tuesday), pinch-run,” Grifol said. “In an emergency we can probably use him, even though we don’t want to. But an IL was just too long a period.
“I wouldn’t throw him out there (on the field defensively) right now. It has to be an extreme emergency and even then, I’ll protect against that.”
Moncada, who retroactively went on the IL on June 14, did some throwing before Wednesday’s game.
Grifol said a timeline is “hard to tell because we haven’t started hitting yet.”
“The back is weird,” Grifol said of Moncada’s injury. “I guess it will let you know when it feels good and then you can take the next step. It could be 10 days, could be two weeks, I don’t have an answer, just depends on how he progresses and he’s day to day. Just have to see how he feels. And takes the next step.
“He was out there (Tuesday) running around a little bit, fielding, shagging, moving around. He was doing a ton of exercises. It just depends. He comes in here, they’ll write his program up, if he feels good they’ll add something else. It’s just the way the back is.”
Catcher Yasmani Grandal was a late scratch for Wednesday’s game with right knee soreness. The Sox said he’s day to day.
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