NEW YORK – Less than 24 hours before Garrett Crochet’s scheduled Saturday afternoon start, the Red Sox southpaw was surprised to find himself besieged with autograph and photo requests from Yankees fans, young and old, who stood behind the rope line that rings the dirt behind home plate during batting practice at Yankee Stadium.
Crochet took their attentions as a compliment, a sign he’s proving himself to be one of those high-caliber players so great that even the most staunchly anti-Red Sox fans in the Bronx still want his John Hancock. (When he’s not pitching against their favorite team, anyway.)
“It was the first time (that happened). Typically adults are a little more set in their ways, so that was more surprising to me,” Crochet told the Herald on Friday. “It’s cool to hear. Tomorrow they won’t feel that (way).”
He was right. Though Red Sox Nation has made their presence known throughout the first three games of this Bronx quartet, the majority of the 45,412 paying customers on Saturday were rooting, in vain, against Crochet and his team. And as he held the Yankees to a Giancarlo Stanton solo home run, four additional hits, walked one, and struck out 11, including his 200th of the season and then the 500th of his career, the home crowd could only series, groan, and lament.
By the time the Red Sox completed their 12-1 victory to improve to 3-0 in series play with the Yankees this season, many fans of the home team were long gone.
The (K)aptain
Though Crochet and Aaron Judge have overlapped in the majors since the southpaw’s 2020 debut, they hadn’t faced off until this season. In seven at-bats between the southpaw’s two June starts against the Yankees, he struck out their captain six times; Judge’s lone banger was a solo homer.
Crochet struck Judge out twice on Saturday, too. The latter was Crochet’s 200th, a feat only achieved by three other Red Sox pitchers within their first 26 games of the season: Chris Sale (‘17, ‘18), Pedro Martinez (‘99, ‘00, ‘02) and Roger Clemens (‘88). At 26 years and 63 days old on Saturday, Crochet became the youngest pitcher to reach 500 strikeouts and post an ERA of 2.90 or lower in the first 130 games of his career since Los Angeles Dodgers legend Clayton Kershaw in 2012.
“Every five days,” manager Alex Cora of his consistent ace. “We needed that, and the front office executed in Dallas (trading for him)… And the other guys are following suit.”
Free Will
When Yankees rookie Will Warren faced the Red Sox for the first time on June 6, they’d banger him hard – four earned runs, three hits and four walks in 5.1 innings – but he and his team had emerged triumphant for the first – and thus far only – time in the season series.
The Boston bats pounced earlier, banger harder, and sent him on his way sooner on Saturday; his outing ended one batter into the fourth, when Trevor Story took him deep on the first pitch.
Warren was able to curtail the Red Sox the first time through the order. Then, they loaded the bases three times between the first outs of the third and fourth innings. Carlos Narváez’s one-out single snapped his 0 for 7 skid and turned the lineup over. Leadoff man Roman Anthony singled to put runners on the corners, and Warren walked Alex Bregman to fill up the diamond for the first time.
When Warren responded by getting Jarren Duran swinging on three pitches, it looked for a moment as though the Red Sox were about to squander yet another bases-loaded opportunity, something they did thrice against the Orioles Tuesday night, and again in Thursday’s series opener in New York.
A different Story
Story entered the contest 7 for 15 in bases-loaded at-bats this season, and lined Warren’s second pitch, a 1-0 sweeper, to left for a two-run double. 8 for 16.
The veteran shortstop’s 22nd double was the first of three clutch hits for him in the contest. When Stanton led off the bottom of the fourth with a first-pitch, 370-foot homer only gone at Yankee Stadium, Story responded in kind. He sent Warren’s first pitch of the fifth 373 feet – good enough to be a homer in 13 ballparks – to the same vicinity of right-center. Story doused any sparks ignited by Stanton, and achieved his first 20/20 season since ’21, his final year with the Colorado Rockies.
Relentless
With over a century of stunning upsets between these two eternal rivals, a 5-1 lead can feel as tight as a margin of one when entering the ninth inning in enemy territory.
By the Yankees’ last chance to bat, however, the margin was 11; Boston plated seven runs, their most in a ninth inning (or extras) against the Yankees since at least 1969 (the oldest data available from Elias Sports).
Paul Blackburn, making his Yankees debut after being designated for assignment and released by the New York Mets last week, was forced to wear it. Anthony led off the inning with his 18th career double. Blackburn induced a Bregman groundout, then yielded three consecutive singles to Duran, Story, and Nathaniel Lowe, who plated Boston’s seventh run.
Blackburn got Masataka Yoshida to pop up for the second out, but the bulk of the carnage was still to come: back-to-back RBI singles by Ceddanne Rafaela and David Hamilton. Moments later, they scored and advanced to second, respectively on a balk during Narváez’s at-bat.
Red Sox fans’ “Who’s your daddy?” chants warred with the boos from the home crowd as they exited en masse.
Narváez, who’d started the scoring hours earlier, sent Blackburn’s full-count sweeper 414 feet into the visitors’ bullpen; 12-1 Boston, and the lineup flipped over for the second time in the inning. Blackburn walked Anthony, then got Bregman out for the second time in the inning.
Even if Major League Baseball introduced a mercy rule, it’s unlikely these two rivals would ever debase themselves thusly. The bottom of the ninth was over quickly, anyway. Jordan Hicks worked around a two-out walk to José Caballero, and the series was won.
Facts and figures
The Red Sox are 71-59 on the season, including an eight-game win streak against the Yankees (8-1 in the season series), which ties their longest single-season win streak against them. Breaking the record, 14 in 1912, will be impossible under the balanced schedule MLB introduced in ‘23 … Story, who wears No. 10 for the Red Sox is the 10th player in franchise history to have 20/20/20 season: homers, steals, and doubles … Starting next season, the BBWAA will add AL and NL Relief Pitcher of the Year to their year-end awards slate. Aroldis Chapman, who has a career-best 1.08 ERA over 55 Red Sox appearances in his age-37 season, would be a slam-dunk if RPOTY began this season.
Originally Published:
About the Author
