ANAHEIM -- Garrett Crochet was rolling. From the third to the sixth inning of the Red Sox’s 3-2 walk-off loss to the Angels on Tuesday night, he put down 11 of the 13 batters he faced. He was in as good of a groove that a pitcher can be in, and all that was in his mind was more.
“I wasn’t really thinking about it,” he said after the 10-inning clash at Angel Stadium. “Just trying to keep throwing up zeros.”
The Red Sox rode a masterclass from Crochet -- seven scoreless innings, three hits allowed, and 10 strikeouts on 103 pitches. It was his first career start in which he pitched at least seven scoreless innings with double-digit punchouts, and he held the Angels hitless through the first 3 2/3 frames.
“He was really good,” manager Alex Cora said. “Really good. … I think the fastball played really well today. The weather here is outstanding. He was able to give us seven. We just didn’t finish it up.”
It wasn’t just the fastball, which was sitting at 96.8 mph, 0.7 mph up from his season average. All of Crochet’s pitches were going for him on Tuesday. The cutter -- up 0.6 mph. The velocity on his sweeper was in line with his average of 82.8 mph but carried slightly more induced vertical break down and horizontal break to the right than usual. His sinker was also going for him, with its velocity up by half a tick.
Outings like this have become par for the course for Crochet. He allowed one run in each of his past two starts -- six innings with eight strikeouts last Wednesday at Seattle, and 8 1/3 innings with seven strikeouts against the Yankees on June 13. Through Boston’s first 81 games, Crochet leads the American League in strikeouts (135) and innings (109 1/3). His 2.06 ERA is third-lowest in the AL, and his WHIP (1.02) ranks 10th-best.
To get an idea of just how dominant Crochet has been in his first half-season in Boston, the list of pitchers in Red Sox history with at least 110 strikeouts and fewer than 30 runs allowed through their first 17 starts of a season are Pedro Martinez in 2000, and Garrett Crochet in 2025.
In other words, he’s doing things on the mound that other fabled Red Sox pitchers -- Roger Clemens, Cy Young, Babe Ruth, Luis Tiant, Smoky Joe Wood -- failed to do.
“Amazing,” Cora said. “That’s why we traded for him. That’s why we extended him. And every five days, we feel very comfortable with him on the mound.”
For a while, it looked as if one run might be enough to get the Sox a win on Tuesday, as rookie Marcelo Mayer hit the first triple of his career and scored on a sac fly in the third inning. That 1-0 cushion popped when prized Angels rookie Christian Moore hit a game-tying home run off of reliever Greg Weissert in the bottom of the eighth.
Mayer looked like he could be the hero when he drove in the go-ahead run in extra innings for the first three-hit game of his young career, but Moore came through with another homer -- this one a two-run drive off of Justin Wilson -- to walk it off for the Halos, dealing the Red Sox their fourth consecutive loss.
“Crochet had an amazing start, feels like he always does,” Red Sox shortstop Trevor Story said. “Anytime we lose after a performance like that, that hurts.”
Eighty-one games in, and the Sox are sitting one game below .500, 40-41. It’s not the season they envisioned when they traded for Crochet, sending a haul of prospects to the White Sox that included Kyle Teel and Braden Montgomery.
“We’ve been playing close games,” Crochet said, “but ultimately, we’re just not playing good enough. Obviously, we had a stretch last week and we were riding that high for a little bit. But I think this road trip is a good wake-up call that we need to keep our foot on the gas throughout the whole year.
“Even on this road trip, we’ve played some really good ball. Just not good enough.”