Only five times in the 29 starts the Red Sox have gotten from ace Garrett Crochet has the big lefty given up more than two earned runs and the fact that two of those occasions happened within three weeks of each other was certainly setting off some signals of concern around Boston.
The first came on August 11, when Crochet gave up five runs in four innings in Houston. That was easily chalked up to a bad day in which the Astros were able to put together some seeing-eye hits and a big homer. But in Crochet’s last appearance, against Cleveland on September 2 (the day Roman Anthony was injured) he looked eminently hittable, giving up nine hits and four–four!–home runs in 6.0 innings.
If Monday’s start in Oakland did not go well then the Red Sox’s mounting pile of September problems would get its biggest problem yet. But Bostonians can relax. Pitching in Sacramento, Crochet was dominant: 7.0 innings, three hits, no walks, 10 strikeouts in a breezy, 7-0 win over the A’s.
Red Sox Get Dominant Outing
After the game, Crochet was feeling like himself again and revealed that he really had not been on-target in his last five starts cumulatively, not just the Guardians and Astros games.
“Not even just the last one. I felt like the last five, outside of New York, I was kind of scuffling,” Crochet said, via the Globe. “From the outside, it’s easy to look at [the Cleveland game] as a blip. But I was pretty pissed. I couldn’t really pinpoint where it went wrong.”
Crochet said he succeeded on Monday by making the game shorter and his keeping his attention in the present.
“It was more of a pitch-to-pitch focus. This pitch, then the next one,” he said. “It freed me up a little bit. It got me out of worrying about three-ball counts, worrying about walks, worrying about damage. You can’t always make the perfect pitch. Tonight, I felt like I freed myself up from a lot of that.”
Garrett Crochet Made a Mechanical Adjustment
Another factor for Crochet, he said, was some adjustments in his mechanics. He took advice from backup catcher Connor Wong, who saw some things despite the fact that it’s Carlos Narvaez, not Wong, who is Crochet’s normal catcher. Narvaez was behind the plate on Monday.
“Big credit to Wong,” said Crochet, via MassLive. “A couple days ago I was talking to him, kinda searching. I just hadn’t been locating the four-seam glove side. He got me on practicing the front hip glove-side sinker just to make sure I”m fully extended on the pitch. It got my four-seam back dialed in.
“I felt like each pitch was very deliberate tonight and I never felt like I was over-exerting. I had a lot of energy left in the tank. This late in the season, just happy I was able to make it through seven.”
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