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Red Sox’ Garrett Crochet even heard ‘trash talk in the bullpen’ during ‘coolest’ Opening Day
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- Red Sox’ Garrett Crochet even heard ‘trash talk in the bullpen’ during ‘coolest’ Opening Day
CINCINNATI — Red Sox ace Garrett Crochet struggled throughout spring training, allowing 12 runs on 15 hits in 14 ⅔ innings across four starts.
But he turned into his typical dominant self once the calendar flipped to the regular season on Thursday. He struck out eight over six scoreless innings to lead the Red Sox to a 3-0 win over the Reds at Great American Ball Park.
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“I’ve got a lot of self belief, but in the moment in spring, I definitely thought I sucked,” Crochet said. “But I knew that that wasn’t who I was. You gotta be able to turn the page — and no better time to do it than first game of the season.”
Crochet kicked into a higher gear, including a bump in velocity.
The 26-year-old lefty topped out at 98.3 mph and averaged 96.9 mph with his 30 four-seam fastballs, an increase from an average of 95.6 mph during spring training.
“As far as Opening Days go, this has been the coolest one I’ve been a part of,” Crochet said. “You can tell baseball means a lot to this town.”
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The Reds were the first all-professional baseball team in the United States. The city celebrates every Opening Day with a parade before the game.
The fans even let Crochet hear it a little bit warming up before the game.
“There was some trash talk in the bullpen, but it was just the energy all game,” Crochet said. “The fans were very into it, so it’s easy to let them supply the emotion in that situation.”
Crochet pitched out of a jam in the sixth inning. The Reds loaded the bases with one out on a walk and two singles. But Crochet struck out both Eugenio Suárez and Spencer Steer swinging on cutters to keep it a scoreless game.
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“I feel like that does wonders just for momentum for our team from an offensive standpoint, even for guys in the bullpen coming in,” Crochet said.
The Red Sox took a 1-0 lead immediately after. Marcelo Mayer led off the seventh inning with a pinch-hit double . Carlos Narváez moved him to third on a sacrifice bunt, then Ceddanne Rafaela delivered an RBI single.
Manager Alex Cora wasn’t concerned about Crochet’s rough spring training stats.
“The way he talked about it at the end, I think he was very honest with everybody, like working on things, different sequences,” Cora said. “Especially the last day, he used some pitches that he normally doesn’t in two strikes. And that’s what spring training is for, right? To work on your thing, especially him. And from the get-go they put the ball in play, he induced them to weak contact, and he was efficient. I looked up, I’m like, ‘Oh, shoot, he might go deeper than what I expected.’”
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Crochet added a splitter in the offseason and experimented with it during spring training games. But he said he won’t use it during the regular season.
“Today, it was like, ‘Hey, I’m banging the splitter for the year. I’ll just go back to the changeup I was throwing last year,’” Crochet said. “Was able to flash that a couple times. But didn’t overuse that or the sweeper.”
Crochet wasn’t pleased with the command of his fastball at times during spring training . But he said he felt good with the usage of all three of his fastballs (four-seamer, two-seamer and cutter) in the opener.
“Today it was no care in the world about shape,” Crochet said about his heater. “Just flying through the zone, trying to throw it hard.”
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