Before the game, Sox manager Alex Cora said Crochet seemed unshaken after giving up 11 runs (10 earned) in 1⅔ innings last Monday against the Twins.
“He’s crushing his crossword puzzles before the game, he’s talking to everybody, nothing has changed,” Cora said. “That’s the beauty of him. When he’s dominant, he’s the same thing the next day. Last week, it was a tough one for him. It was business as usual the next day.”
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And for four innings, Crochet looked like the pitcher who threw six scoreless innings against the Reds in the season opener, allowing just one run while collecting seven of his eight strikeouts.
Willson Contreras hit his fourth home run of the season, a solo shot at Fenway Park.Matthew J. Lee/Globe Staff
But in the fifth, with the game tied at 1, Crochet left a sinker up to Jahmai Jones, who lifted it to the light pole in left-center for a solo homer. Then, after walking Gleyber Torres and allowing a single to Matt Vierling, Dillon Dingler stung him for a three-run homer that broke the game open.
The 11-run avalanche felt like an outlier. But this one stung Crochet because, for most of it, he felt in control.
“Last one it was so bad that you can’t really even have any emotion about it,” Crochet said. “This one, I felt like I was just dominating until I wasn’t.”
In four starts since the season opener, Crochet has allowed 23 runs (21 earned) on 27 hits in 18 innings. It’s the worst four-game stretch of his career.
He went through a similar early-season rut two years ago when he gave up 19 runs over a four-start stretch in April with the White Sox, but he bounced back by going 4-1 with a 0.93 ERA in May and put together an All-Star campaign, with 209 strikeouts and a 3.58 ERA despite a 6-12 record.
“Oh, I remember it,” Crochet said. “No, I’ve been bringing it up. I’m like, ‘All right, now I’m just going to have a 0.90 in May.’ It was a similar stretch as what I’m going through right now. Can’t find the zone, and when I cover the zone, it gets hammered.”
Trevor Story walked back to the dugout after striking out swinging to start the ninth inning.Matthew J. Lee/Globe Staff
Plenty of Sox starters have gone through patches just as rough — from Josh Beckett (2002 and 2003) and Pedro Martinez (2004) to Curt Schilling (2005) and Tim Wakefield (2005 and twice in 2007) to Nick Pivetta (2022) and Walker Buehler (2025).
But with the Sox 8-13, it’s no consolation.
“It’s tough,” Crochet said. “You look at how it ended and it leaves a bad taste in your mouth, sure. But this game will beat you up if you let it. And I threw 4⅔ damn good innings.”
After the Twins outing, Crochet acknowledged he was reaching for answers — maybe he was tipping pitches, he figured. But after Sunday, he said he had a better idea what was happening.
“Right now every mistake that I make is getting absolutely hammered, but it’s because they’re mistakes when I’m behind in the count,” he said. “When it’s 1⅔ [innings] and 11 [runs allowed], it seems like they knew what was coming. But tonight it was just count leverage. [When I had it], I had success. When I didn’t have it, I got banged around pretty good.”
Crochet said that, as a group, the pitching staff took a clear-eyed view at their numbers this season — “how poor we’ve been” — and are fully aware that the team’s success hinges on its performance.
“That’s kind of how the team was built,” he said. “That’s why I was acquired last year, so the performance up to this point — I’ve said it’s unacceptable multiple times at this point going back to Houston — but that’s still the case.”
Julian Benbow can be reached at [email protected].
