Connelly Early prepared to step up in Red Sox rotation with Lucas Giolito out for the postseason

NEW YORK - The Red Sox took care of business in Game 1, defeating the Yankees 3-1, taking a 1-0 lead in the best-of-three series in the American League Wild Card round.

Boston is one win away from a date with the American League East champion, the Toronto Blue Jays. No matter what the Red Sox do this postseason, starting pitcher Lucas Giolito will have a much different role than expected. He will take on the role of a supportive teammate, watching from the dugout, as his teammates look to advance deep into the postseason.

Giolito will miss the postseason with a right elbow injury, creating a massive hole in the rotation the rest of the way.

“I feel like I haven’t really processed it; it’s happened very fast,” Giolito said. “It’s obviously been devastating. Going through what happened last year, grinding back, and then being able to help this team be in the position that we’re in here now, like I said, there was no other thought in my mind than to continue to do what I was doing in the postseason. So to have that kind of thing ripped away from you, it’s a tough one to deal with.”

Giolito began to feel discomfort in his elbow a few weeks back following his start against the Athletics.

“I probably started feeling it around my start against the A’s. Yeah, it started off mild and obviously got progressively worse,” said Giolito, whom the Red Sox left off the Wild Card roster after manager Alex Cora made the stunning announcement about the injury on Monday.

Initially, Giolito thought his sore elbow was the byproduct of pitching through a long season.

“There was no other thought in my mind than to grind through and be available to throw as many quality innings as possible,” he said. “Once it got to a point where it really started affecting throwing, that’s when we had to address it… I’ve been doing this for so long that you get used to things. I wouldn’t say I was necessarily feeling any particular pain; I just felt like I was grinding. And then it kind of got worse later.”

He realized things were serious when he was throwing a bullpen before his final start of the regular season. Instead of pitching Game 162, Giolito flew to Alabama to see Dr. Jeffrey Dugas, the surgeon who performed his March ‘24 elbow surgery.

The righty received a “pretty interesting” diagnosis, revealing he does not have another UCL injury, which was his “first fear.” Giolito’s UCL was intact, but his flexor was “very irritated,” and there was an issue with the bone near the area where he had the internal brace procedure last year.

“The good news is that structurally everything was checked out and good, which was, I guess, a small relief in a very unfortunate situation,” he said. “But as it was described to me—I’m not a doctor—in layman’s terms, my flexor is very irritated. And there’s like – at this point it’s hard for me to describe; it’s like weird stuff going on with my bone. So yeah, I mean, it’s one of those things where I was told, you know, you got to stop throwing and let it calm down… (No UCL injury) was a big relief, but it doesn’t really make up for where we’re at right now.”

With Giolito officially out of action, Boston is likely to turn to rookie left-hander Connelly Early to fill his spot in the rotation. Boston has not officially announced a Game 3 starter, but all signs point to the Universoty of Virginia alum to get the ball in front of the rabid crowd at Yankee Stadium.

“It would be phenomenal if I were able to get out there,” Early told Boston Sports Journal in front of his locker following the game. “I mean, just being out there with the fans and everything is amazing… that’s what you pitch for, that’s what you want. You want the ball; you want to be able to go out there and have a hard-fought game against really good teams.

“So, with the rivalry as well, it’s just even extra added on.”

Cora has not officially announced who his Game 3 starter will be, and if the Red Sox win on Wednesday night, it will be a moot point.

“Not yet. We’ll see where we’re at. There’s a good chance it’s Connelly, but we have to take care of the first two games and see where we’re at.”

Early has been impressive in his first four big league starts, going 1-2 with a 2.33 ERA while striking out 29 batters and walking just four.

The sample size is small for the southpaw, and Cora knows that, but he acknowledged his 37 percent strikeout rate, attributed to the quality of his stuff and command when on the mound.

“The fastball plays and the breaking ball is good,” he said. “When you’re around the zone and you’ve got good stuff, you’re going to get swing-and-miss.”

His teammates have also taken notice, including ace Garrett Crochet.

“I knew that I had the stuff to belong (as a rookie), and that’s kind of what I see in Early,” Crochet said Monday during his media availability. “When Early came up, it was a sense of comfortability in who he was. Not in a boisterous way where he’s being loud in the clubhouse, but just more so in that he knows who he is. And I think that you could see that in (Kyle) Harrison as well.”