ARLINGTON, Texas — Garrett Crochet looked right at home Monday as he folded his hulking, 6-6 frame behind a single-size press-conference table on All-Star media day.
For whatever reason, Crochet’s station was plopped right in between those of two Yankees. On his left sat 6-7 superstar Aaron Judge. On his right, 6-5 closer Clay Holmes.
A lumbering wisenheimer from Chicago asked Crochet if he thought Judge was star-struck to be sitting so close to the White Sox lefty and first-time All-Star.
“Uh, no, I don’t think so,” Crochet said. “Nothing seems to faze him.”
And nothing fazed Crochet as one reporter after another from around baseball asked about the very real possibility he’ll be concluding his breakout season somewhere else after the July 30 trade deadline.
Crochet had all his pat answers lined up and ready:
“I’m just taking things day to day, start to start.”
“I take all the trade rumors as a huge compliment.”
“I can’t control what happens or doesn’t happen, so I’ll just keep trying to make great starts for the White Sox.”
Fine, wonderful, but what about pitching for the Padres? Or the Dodgers? Or the Yankees? According to reports, the Sox have been in contact with all of them and expressed a particular desire to the Yankees for outfield prospect Spencer Jones.
Crochet — who’s on an innings watch, already having thrown a career-high 107⅓ — said he’d prefer staying on an every-five-days schedule to skipping any turns in the rotation during the second half. If he does get dealt to a contender, he clearly wants to be used as a starter; pitching in relief would be “backtracking,” he said.
Truth be told, he kind of looked like a Yankee as he, Judge, Holmes and Juan Soto sat at Globe Life Field in their home whites with black pinstripes. Right at home? Maybe soon.
The Skenes Machine
No All-Star has the kind of buzz around him that Pirates 22-year-old Paul Skenes brought to his first Midsummer Classic. If, somehow, you don’t know all about Skenes yet, he’s the National League rookie pitcher whose last name is pronounced, “Shota who?”
No offense to the Cubs’ lone All-Star, Shota Imanaga, but he’s practically invisible compared with Skenes, who’s 6-0 with a 1.90 ERA and some of the filthiest strikeout stuff the game has seen from a newcomer in many years. Skenes will be the fifth rookie pitcher to start an All-Star Game and the first since the Dodgers’ Hideo Nomo right here in Arlington in 1995.
“It’s cool to even be in this position,” Skenes said.
Everyone wants to see a Skenes-Judge matchup, but it won’t happen if Skenes has a 1-2-3 first inning. Judge is batting fourth for the American League, and NL manager Torey Lovullo said Skenes won’t get a second inning.
If Skenes doesn’t get Judge, maybe Imanaga will.
“Looking at pretty much all his stats, they look like videogame numbers,” Imanaga said, “but those are the numbers he [actually] gets. So I want to face him and see how he reacts to my pitching.”
Hold my beer
Got to love the Guardians staffer who heroically protected third baseman Jose Ramirez from a Sun-Times question about Tim Anderson, whom Ramirez punched out last season and is a man without a major-league team.
“Next question,” the staffer interrupted.
Why?
“Only All-Star questions,” was the answer — pretty pathetic considering the previous three questions asked of and answered by Ramirez literally were about food or beer.
Oh, and he prefers Presidente’s suds to Modelo’s, in case you were wondering.