Red Sox ace didn’t look at bad start as a ‘blip,’ then got to work and dominated A’s with 10 Ks

WEST SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Garrett Crochet was consistently dominant in his first 23 starts of the season, going 13-4 with a 2.24 ERA while avoiding a true blow-up outing for the first four months of the season. The last six weeks, though, have brought two such occasions.

Crochet’s poor outing in Houston in Houston on August 11 (5 runs in 4 innings) and against Cleveland last week (4 homers, 7 runs in 6 innings) can easily be viewed as inevitable blips over the course of a long, wildly successful. They might be viewed as a sign of Crochet’s workload catching up to him, a theory quickly dismissed by the lefty and anyone else employed by the Red Sox. To Crochet, though, the two outings were simply examples of not hitting his standard.

“From the outside, it’s easy to look it as a blip, but no, I was pretty pissed,” Crochet said. “I couldn’t really pinpoint where it went wrong because I felt like when it did go wrong, it was the same thing that I did when I was going right earlier in the game in both starts.”

So Crochet, who between those two outings had three excellent starts against the Marlins, Yankees and Orioles yet still described himself as “scuffling” over a five-start span, got to work. Catcher Connor Wong noticed some mechanics out of sync and told Crochet to key in on fixing them. The result was a dominant seven-inning performance in Monday’s win over the Athletics, a performance in which Crochet allowed just three hits and struck out 10.

“Big credit to Wong,” said Crochet. “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.”

Crochet’s quality start was his 19th in 29 tries this season and lowered his ERA to 2.57 in a league-leading 185 ⅓ innings. His 228 strikeouts lead baseball, too. As dissatisfying as the Houston and Cleveland outings were in Crochet’s mind, they were major outliers in what has been a tremendous inaugural season in Boston for him.

“It changes everything (to have an ace),” said shortstop Trevor Story. “A bona fide guy who’s, in my opinion, the best in the game and competing for that Cy Young. Every fifth day, he’s posting. Whether on a hot streak or not, we feel like we have a really good chance to win. He’s a stopper when it’s not going good. When he’s pitching, you feel really good about it. That can create a lot of momentum.”

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Pitching in an unfamiliar locale at the A’s temporary home of Sutter Health Park on Monday, Crochet faced a quietly dangerous lineup that is better than the club’s 66-79 record would suggest. With good young players like Shea Langeliers, Nick Kurtz, Brent Rooker, Jacob Wilson and Tyler Soderstrom in the box, the A’s have gotten to good pitchers throughout the season, as seen on August 25, when Tarik Skubal took a loss in Sacramento after being tagged for six runs — though five unearned — and allowing two homers, including a grand slam to Langeliers. Both Crochet and manager Alex Cora mentioned the struggles of Skubal — Crochet’s chief competition in the American League Cy Young race — outing when discussing Crochet’s dominance after a 7-0 Red Sox win.

“Coming into this start, I saw what they did to a lefty a couple weeks ago,” Crochet said. “I knew I had to be on my A-game.”

Cora added: “Skubal gave up a grand slam here. That’s part of baseball, man. They’re not perfect. They’re going to give it up. That’s how it works. When you start 30 games at this level, somebody’s gonna get you.”

Crochet’s 101-pitch performance Monday silenced any doubts about his physical condition as the Red Sox head into late September, and barring a late season collapse, the first round of the postseason in early October. Cora said that the club has no plans to cut down on the lefty’s workload or limit his pitch count in the final weeks of the regular season. Monday’s outing was more than a small step in the right direction.

“He made some mistakes in the last one, they put some good swings on it, but it was just one bad inning,” Cora said. “He went out there against a tough lineup and pounded the strike zone, had good stuff and gave us more than enough.”