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Red Sox’ Garrett Crochet plays stopper in second try at halting losing streak
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- Red Sox’ Garrett Crochet plays stopper in second try at halting losing streak
At the end of their first road trip of the season, the Red Sox turned to Garrett Crochet to put the brakes on the team’s four-game losing streak. Uncharacteristically, Crochet stumbled and the streak grew.
Given another opportunity to reverse his sputtering team’s momentum, Crochet didn’t miss Tuesday night. He blanked the Milwaukee Brewers for the first six innings before yielding two runs in the seventh as the Red Sox snapped a three-game skid with a 3-2 victory.
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The fact that Crochet didn’t get the job done last time only fueled him further.
“I’m kind of always looking for a little bit of an edge, wherever you can get it,” said Crochet. “I think I definitely felt like we needed to stop the bleeding.”
It wasn’t the easiest of circumstances. First, Crochet was matched against Milwaukee’s Jacob Misiorowski , who limited the Sox to just two hits over 5.1 innings. Secondly, the game was played in frigid conditions, with a game-time temperate of 42 degrees that dipped over the next two and a half hours.
“A night like tonight,” Crochet said, “you kind of know who’s on the other side and you kind of have to be on your ‘A’ game.”
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Crochet had to pitch out of a few jams of his own. In the second, he yielded a leadoff single to Gary Sanchez , who quickly moved into scoring position on a groundout. But Crochet got a strikeout and an inning-ending groundout to strand Sanchez.
It was more of the same in the fourth when a walk an error by Marcelo Mayer at second gave the Brewers two on and no out. But the lefty got Luis Matos on 6-4-3 double play to get out of further trouble.
Alex Cora had determined before the game that he would limit Crochet to 100-105 pitches and chose to send him out for the seventh with the pitch count at 89.
Crochet seemed to struggle some in his final inning, allowing two singles and issuing a walk and hit batsman to fill the bases with one out. That ended his night at 107 pitches thrown, but reliever Zack Kelly got two quick groundouts to prevent additional damage.
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Since his last outing, almost a week ago, Crochet had watched the losses pile up and felt the frustration mount. He heard the booing from the fans and heard the chants.
It was time to do something about it.
“For me, we just know that it’s on us as the players,” said Crochet. “At the end of the day, that’s all it boils down to really — the 26 guys that we’ve got. The staff, they can help as much as possible but it’s on us to get the job done. We can acquire as much talent as we want, but we still have to go out there and play.
“Really, all there is to it is: you either do the job or you don’t.”
Having failed his last time around, Crochet wasn’t about to let another chance get away from him.
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