By CURTIS ROCKWELL/Sports Director

Opening Day 2024 in Major League Baseball Thursday marks a major milestone for a pair of former prep standouts on the diamond in the “Southern Six”.
A pair of pitchers from our coverage area have the honor of being the starting pitcher for both of their respective squads as yet another season begins, and both just happen to play for a Chicago team.
Former Ocean Springs High standout Garrett Crochet draws the starting Opening Day assignment for the Chicago White Sox on the Southside of the Windy City Thursday afternoon.
Then, a few hours later, former George County High School standout Justin Steele takes the mound at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas as he leads his Chicago Cubs up against the defending World Series champion Texas Rangers to get the new campaign started for both teams.
Crochet came into spring training in Arizona with the Chicago White Sox attempting to transition from a relief role into the starting rotation. But he did better than just that.
A little over a week ago, White Sox manager Pedro Grifol announced Crochet got the nod as the starting pitcher for Chicago on opening day against the Detroit Tigers.

Crochet has been one of the standout players at camp, allowing no runs and seven hits in four outings in his one start. He has 12 strikeouts in nine innings.
It will mark the first-ever regular season start for the crafty the 24-year-old left-hander that brings a lot of upside to the table. After struggling with his control late last season when he rejoined the White Sox bullpen following his recovery from elbow surgery, Crochet has looked far sharper this spring.
“Very shocked to say the least,” Crochet told reporters Monday. “I heard they had some exciting news for me, and I thought it was just that I’d made the rotation. ““It’s humbling and very gratifying. I worked my tail off this spring, had a lot of solid veterans to lean on this camp and was able to put together a good couple of outings. I feel like I earned it. I feel like I’ve kind of been waiting for this moment but didn’t really know if it would come, so to be awarded this, it’s a huge honor.”
The 6-foot-6 Crochet has never started a game at the big league level and even his 12 career minor league outings have all come as a reliever. The last time he started a game was during his college days at Tennessee, just before Chicago selected him in the first round of the 2020 MLB Draft.

The 24-year-old Crochet has 72 major league appearances under his belt, the first of which came back in 2020. He was a regular member of Chicago’s bullpen in 2021, but missed all of 2022 due to Tommy John surgery.
In yet another injury-plagued 2023 campaign, Crochet was still able to pitch in 13 major league contests.
Crochet will be the first White Sox pitcher to make an opening day start for his first career MLB start since Roy Patterson in 1901 – though Patterson also made starts for the White Sox in 1900 when the American League was still classified as a minor league.
One week before Crochett earned that honor, Steele did as well from Chicago Cubs manager Craig Counsell.

Counsell’s announcement really came as no surprise, after the 6-foot-2, 210-pound Steele blossomed into one of the top starting pitchers in the National League last season including being selected to his first-ever MLB All-Star Game.
It will be the first Opening Day start of Steele’s career, and the first ever by a homegrown Cub southpaw. The 28-year-old Steele led the Cubs in victories last year, going 16-5 with a 3.06 ERA. He struck out a career-high 176 in 173.1 innings and walked just 36.
Steele finished in fifth place in Cy Young voting last season, as he was listed on 17 of the 30 ballots and got one second-place vote.