NEW YORK – In the span of 24 hours at last December’s MLB Winter Meetings in Dallas, the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees each secured an ace left-hander to lead their respective team back to baseball’s promised land.
New York signed free agent Max Fried, outbidding Boston, among other suitors. The following day, the Red Sox acquired Garrett Crochet from the Chicago White Sox for a massive prospect haul. The two American League titans committed millions to these two arms – and in Boston’s case, a massive prospect haul before ultimately extending Crochet in April – in pursuit of October glory.
Facing off in the postseason for the sixth time barely eight months later, baseball’s storied rivalry deployed their lefty aces for a stunning Wild Card Game 1 that was a pitcher’s duel until Fried departed.
Then, it wasn’t much of a duel at all, as the Yankees needed five relievers to record the final eight outs of a game in which the Red Sox trailed 1-0 until the seventh and won 3-1.
Crochet found himself in shark-infested waters immediately when Paul Goldschmidt and Aaron Judge greeted him with back-to-back singles in the bottom of the first.
Yet the Red Sox southpaw appeared unfazed by the traffic in the Bronx, and fanning Cody Bellinger and inducing an inning-ending double play was only the beginning of one of the most spectacular pitching performances in the last several decades of Red Sox postseason history.
In his first career postseason start, Crochet gave his team 7.2 innings of one-run ball. The Yankees tallied four hits. Crochet yielded no walks and struck out 11.
“Amazing,” said manager Alex Cora, who went on to say that his ace lived up to his “wildest imagination.”
The Yankees’ home field advantage loomed large in the bottom of the second when Anthony Volpe got New York on the board with a two-out solo blast that would have been a home run in every major league ballpark but Fenway.
But Crochet loomed larger when he retired the next 17 batters and kept the Yankees from adding on. In the bottom of the seventh, he set the Yankees down in order on six pitches, which brought his count into the triple digits. He then recorded the first two outs of the eighth, finishing with an eight-pitch strikeout-looking for catcher Austin Wells.
By the time Cora jogged out to the mound to make his first pitching change of the night, Crochet had thrown 117 pitches. He set a new career-high, at least five pitches more than in any game of his regular-season career.
Crochet is the first Red Sox pitcher to throw at least 100 pitches in a postseason game since Chris Sale’s postseason debut in Game 1 of the 2017 ALDS Game. The 117 pitches are the most thrown by a Red Sox pitcher in a postseason game since Jon Lester’s start against the Angels in Game 1 of the 2008 ALDS, and the most by any major leaguer in the postseason since Stephen Strasburg for the Washington Nationals in Game 3 of the ‘19 NLCS.
It’s a stunning achievement for a pitcher in today’s game, but Cora was not surprised. In fact, it played out almost exactly as his ace told him it would.
“It started yesterday,” Cora said. “For some reason, our front office was in the bullpen checking something over there, and (Crochet) was in the dugout with me, and I told him, ‘We should call the bullpen,’ and he’s like, ‘Tomorrow you’re going to make one call to the bullpen.’ I said, ‘Maybe two.’ He’s like, ‘No, no, no, one. It’s going to be straight to Chappy.’ I was like, ‘OK, I’ll take that.’ And that’s how it worked out.”
Crochet had outlasted Fried by over a full inning, holding down the fort long enough for his Red Sox teammates to find their way at the plate.
Against the Yankees starter, who pitched 6.1 scoreless innings, the Boston bats often looked like the postseason newcomers they are.
Rob Refsnyder and Trevor Story, the leadoff and No. 2 batters, entered Tuesday with six career postseason games between them, all over half a decade ago. Refsnyder, whose only previous playoff experience was a single game with the ‘15 Yankees, led off with a first-pitch groundout, and Story struck out swinging on pitches nowhere near the zone.
Alex Bregman, on his ninth consecutive playoff team, became the eighth player in MLB history to reach 100 career postseason games. His first-inning single was the first banger of the night, but like every Red Sox banger until the best of the seventh, was for naught.
The remaining six men in the Red Sox lineup were making their postseason debuts, and it showed throughout Fried’s start. After a 12-pitch first inning, he needed just nine pitches to retire the side in the second. Fried and the cacophonous home crowd in his proverbial corner, were a lethal combination for the Yankees in the first six innings.
Yet Fried was not nearly as unyielding as Crochet. He, too, allowed just four hits, but he issued three walks and only struck out six batters. The Yankees managed to escape one jam after another with help from a Red Sox offense that periodically struggled to capitalize with men on base during the regular season. They went 0-for-3 with runners in scoring position and left six men on base during Fried’s outing.
“I felt like he had to work pretty hard,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said, by way of explaining why he pulled Fried at 102 pitches. “I felt like his command was not as good the final few … but I mean, he gave us what we needed.”
But it only takes one pitch and one swing to change a game and create a postseason hero.
On Tuesday night, it was Masataka Yoshida, pinch-hitting for Refsnyder with two men on and one out in the seventh. Luke Weaver had already allowed his first two base runners, Ceddanne Rafaela and Nick Sogard, to reach on an 11-pitch walk and double.
Weaver threw a 95.9 mph four-seamer. Yoshida swung and ground it through the middle of the diamond and into center field. Rafaela and Sogard raced home, tying and giving Boston the lead.
The three-batter minimum met, Boone wasted no time returning to the mound for his second pitching change of the seventh inning. Fernando Cruz walked Bregman before getting pinch-hitter Nathaniel Lowe to fly out on the first pitch. Two runs in, but two more runners left on base.
In the best of the ninth, a two-out single and stolen base by Story, and an RBI double by Bregman plated a much-needed insurance run.
Aroldis Chapman made a single appearance longer than one inning in the regular season. But after relieving Crochet in the eighth, the veteran closer returned for the ninth.
After being stifled by Crochet all night long, the Yankees bats came alive. They greeted their former comrade with three consecutive singles to load the bases.
Then, Chapman pulled off a Houdini performance that would have made Mariano Rivera proud. With nowhere to put a man, Chapman fanned Giancarlo Stanton, got Jazz Chisholm Jr. to fly out to right, and got Trent Grisham to strike out on a foul tip.
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