On Dec. 11, the Boston Red Sox sent a package of four top prospects, including catcher Kyle Teel, the 32nd-ranked prospect in baseball, to the Chicago White Sox. In return, the Red Sox acquired 25-year-old White Sox lefty ace Garrett Crochet in a deal that kicked off what The Athletic rated as a Grade A offseason.

Crochet took the mound in a Red Sox uniform to face hitters for the first time on Monday. This time, however, the hitters also wore Red Sox uniforms. In the “live batting practice” session, however, Crochet already looked dominant. He struck out two left-handed hitters in first baseman Triston Casas and No. 1 prospect, outfielder Roman Anthony — both with his sweeper pitch.

Even this early in spring training, Crochet’s fastball clocked in at 99 mph, prompting longtime ESPN baseball reporter Buster Olney to comment, “It’s going to be a very different rotation in Boston this year.”

The only blemish on Crochet’s live session, however, came when shortstop Trevor Story ripped a home run over the JetBlue Park fence in Fort Myers, Florida.

On Wednesday, manager Alex Cora said the words that Red Sox Nation has been waiting for since December: Crochet will make his Red Sox debut as a starting pitcher on Sunday.

The start will highlight Boston’s third spring training exhibition game — and second against an MLB opponent — when the Red Sox take on the Toronto Blue Jays at JetBlue. (The Red Sox, as is their tradition, open their exhibition schedule against a college team, Northeastern, on Friday.)

But before he takes the mound, Crochet got some advice — albeit via a popular Red Sox podcast — from another former White Sox lefty ace who was traded to the Red Sox in 2016 and anchored their rotation for two seasons.

Chris Sale was already a five-time All-Star and 2015 American League strikeout leader when Chicago traded him to the Red Sox in exchange for four top prospects, including Boston’s then-No. 1 prospect Yoan Moncada. He went on to strike out a league-leading 308 in 2017, his first season in Boston.

In 2018, as he battled a shoulder injury, Sale appeared in five postseason games, allowing seven earned runs in 15 1/3 innings, but was on the mound in relief to record the final out of the World Series as the Red Sox beat the Los Angeles Dodgers four games to one.

Sale is now a member of the Atlanta Braves, and won the National League Cy Young Award in 2024.

“Baseball Isn’t Boring” podcast host Rob Bradford asked Sale what advice he would give Crochet as the new, prospective Red Sox mound ace.

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“You know how it goes with Boston. There is a lot of riff-raff with outside noise,” Sale said in the interview. “I would probably tell him to do his best to block that out. Based on what I’ve learned, whether you’re doing really good, or doing really bad, the job is the same. He’s in a position to man that staff and to be able to handle all the pressure that comes with who he is, where he is at and what he needs to do there.”

Sale went on to call Crochet “a stud” and “amazing.”

Will Crochet take the advice to heart? Apparently he already has. According to media reports about him, he pays so little attention to the media that when Cora publicly compared him to Sale, Crochet said he hadn’t heard about the compliment until his wife told him about it.

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