MLB All-Star: White Sox' Garrett Crochet to Yankees? And everybody's talking about Paul Skenes

ARLINGTON, Texas — Garrett Crochet looked right at home Monday as he folded his hulking, 6-6 frame behind a single-size table at a news conference during 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 starstruck to be sitting so close to the White Sox’ lefty, a 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 asked about the very real possibility he’ll conclude his breakout season somewhere else after the July 30 trade deadline.

Crochet had all his pat answers 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 to stay on an every-five-days schedule over skipping any turns in the rotation in the second half. If he is dealt to a contender, he clearly wants to be used as a starter. Pitching in relief would be “backtracking,” he said.

The Skenes Machine

No All-Star has the kind of buzz around him that 22-year-old Paul Skenes of the Pirates brings 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 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 [Judge’s] stats, they look like video-game 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 former Sox shortstop Tim Anderson, whom Ramirez punched out last season and is now 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 and beer.

Oh, and Ramirez prefers Presidente’s suds to Modelo’s, in case you were wondering.

Teoscar goes to …

Dodgers outfielder Teoscar Hernandez cleared the fences just often enough Monday to win the Home Run Derby, barely hanging on against Royals shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. in the final round.

Hernandez beat Witt 14-13 when Witt’s last swing sent a bonus ball shimmering up, away and … into the wall near the 410-foot sign in left-center. A cruel fate for Witt and a cool moment for one of the lesser-known great players on the Dodgers.