FORT MYERS, Fla. — The 2024 Major League Baseball season opens in just over three weeks. The Red Sox will ease into the campaign with late-night games on a 10-game road trip to start things out before baseball returns to Fenway Park on April 9.

Three weeks is an eternity in sports. A lot can change. There can be injuries, trades and, in this spring training, free-agent signings. It’s difficult to predict what a roster will look like this early in March. Yet it’s what we do as we watch baseball under the palm trees.

For the Red Sox, the most important battle being waged at Fenway South is for the final spot in the starting rotation. Brayan Bello, Lucas Giolito, and Nick Pivetta are locked in, if healthy. While their order in the rotation is to be determined, they will be the top three to start the year.

Manager Alex Cora said Kutter Crawford has a leg up on the fourth spot in the rotation. The organization has watched Crawford develop since drafting him out of nearby Florida Gulf Coast University. Cora believes this is the year the 27-year old puts everything together.

Last season represented a major step forward for Crawford, who was second to Bello in starts while posting a career-low 4.04 ERA. The next step for Crawford is to pitch deeper into games. He finished the sixth inning just six times in his 23 starts last season, and had trouble limiting damage as the game went on. Opposing hitters posted a .211 batting average against Crawford the first time through the order. It went up to .233 the second time and ballooned to .356 the third time.

Starters build up their workload in the Grapefruit League, so we won’t see Crawford go deep for a while. What we have seen is an early spike in velocity. Crawford hit 97 mph on the JetBlue Park radar gun in his outing Sunday against the Blue Jays. He dominated the strike zone, throwing 29 of his 38 pitches for strikes.

While it’s early, a breakout season for Crawford could be a massive development for the Sox. According to his manager, that work began in the offseason.

“He’s a little bit thicker,” Cora said, “in a good way. Not in a bad way. His legs are bigger. You can see it – he looks a little big stronger.”

Cora also believes Crawford – and all his starters – will go deeper into games this season because of the team’s focus on improved play in the field. The pitcher’s role is to get outs. The Sox, one of the worst defensive teams in baseball last season, had trouble recording those outs.

“(We need) good defense behind him,” said Cora. “That’s going to be important. Defense can cut 10 pitches off these guys in an outing. That means he goes into the sixth with 55, 60 pitches. It’s not 70, 75.”

The biggest battle in camp is happening behind Crawford. Garrett Whitlock, Tanner Houck and Josh Winckowski are in a competition for the fifth and final spot in the rotation. All three have looked good in their early appearances.

That battle could always be pushed aside if the Sox were able to complete the oft-discussed signing of free agent Jordan Montgomery. All three would end up in the bullpen in that scenario, with Crawford sliding to the fifth spot.

But the Sox haven’t signed Montgomery yet. Why expect it to happen now? Cora knows he needs to plan for the season with the players he has. Red Sox starters had the fourth highest ERA and second fewest innings pitched of any rotation in the American League last season. Last year’s Opening Day starter, Corey Kluber, is gone. So are Chris Sale and James Paxton.

Giolito was the lone starter added to the mix this offseason. That means Crawford has gone from a potential starting pitcher to someone who will be leaned upon if the roster stays as is. In the early days of spring, he seems ready to shoulder the load.

Tom Caron is a studio host for the Red Sox broadcast on NESN. His column appears in the Portland Press Herald on Tuesdays.

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