“Just a performance that big-time pitchers make. And that’s who he is.”
During Monday’s workout at Yankee Stadium, Red Sox manager Alex Cora spotted members of the team’s front office holding court in the team’s bullpen.
Cora, situated in Boston’s dugout alongside Boston’s Game 1 starter, Garrett Crochet, joked that they should have called the bullpen phone as a prank.
Crochet — set to make his first playoff start of his MLB career a little over 24 hours later — instead opted to make a bold proclamation for his anticipated outing against the Yankees.
“He was like, ‘Tomorrow you’re gonna make one call to the bullpen,’” Cora said of Crochet’s message to him. “I said, ‘Maybe two.’ “He’s like, ‘No, no — one. It’s gonna be straight to [closer Aroldis Chapman].’ Like, okay, I’ll take that.”
Crochet ended up being a man of his word.
By the time Crochet made his way off the field in The Bronx, on Tuesday Cora only needed one more pitcher — Chapman — to secure four outs and wrap up an eventual 3-1 win for Boston in Game 1 of their Wild Card bout with the Yankees.
“Just being arrogant, to be honest,” Crochet said postgame of his bold claim to Cora from the previous day. “I didn’t actually expect that to be the case. But when [Cora] sent me back out there [in the eighth], I was determined to leave it that way.”
Crochet’s final line speaks for itself.
7.2 innings pitched.
117 total pitches.
Four hits.
One earned run allowed.
Zero walks.
11 strikeouts.
For Crochet, it served as further proof in his ascension as one of the game’s top arms.
And for a Red Sox team that relinquished four prospects in December to pluck him from the White Sox, Tuesday’s dominant start validated a lofty vision.
A vision where Crochet — an uber-talented, albeit unproven, arm — would seize an opportunity to serve as Boston’s sought-after ace.
Based on Tuesday’s musings across both clubhouses at Yankee Stadium, it seems as though Boston’s offseason maneuver paid off.
“He’s a complete animal, complete beast,” Red Sox catcher Carlos Narvaez said of Boston’s top lefty. “I’m just happy we have him on our team for a long time.
“He’s the best pitcher in the game,” Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge added of Crochet.
It took some time for Boston’s bats to heat up on Tuesday, with the Red Sox finally plating runners in the seventh inning.
But Masataka Yoshida’s two-run single in that frame was all the insurance that Boston needed on a night where Crochet sapped any source of momentum away from an imposing New York lineup.
Entering the postseason with a league-leading 849 runs scored, the Yankees only managed to land one punch against Crochet on Tuesday — a solo shot off the bat of Anthony Volpe in the second inning.
As a raucous Yankee Stadium crowd roared in approval in hopes of another Crochet pitch entering the short porch, Boston’s starter simply shrugged.
“So what. Next pitch,” Crochet said of his response after Volpe gave New York a 1-0 lead. “The last thing that I want is the eight guys playing behind me to think that I’m going to give in to the moment.”
Crochet instead seized the moment after Volpe’s big fly, with a roaring crowd quieting to a hush as Boston’s ace carved through New York’s order.
After Volpe crossed home plate, the next 17 Yankees batters didn’t reach base — with Crochet only allowing one hit and fanning nine for the remainder of his outing.
After Yoshida put Boston ahead in the seventh, it took Crochet just six pitches to get through the bottom of the frame.
Cora had a decision to make. Or so it seemed.
In Cora’s 24 postseason games as a Red Sox manager, he never had a pitcher throw more than 97 pitches.
But with Crochet already at 100 pitches through seven innings of work, Cora opted to roll with his ace once again in the eighth inning.
“I felt like he’s put a lot of faith in me this year, and I haven’t let him down yet,” Crochet said of Cora. “So I was going to be damn sure this wasn’t the first time.”
Crochet ultimately turned the ball over to Chapman with two outs in the eighth. His final pitch of the outing? A 100.2 mph fastball — serving as a called strike three against Yankees catcher Austin Wells.
For all of the talk entering the season of Crochet’s limited workload with Chicago, that blistering fastball — his 117th offering of the night — was tied for the fastest he’s thrown all season.
“I feel like in this environment, it’s really hard to feel any sort of fatigue beyond mental and up until that point, I was still incredibly locked into the game, especially after we took the lead,” Crochet said. “There was a lot at stake, so it kept me locked in and engaged the whole time.”
In total, Crochet’s 117 pitches are the most by a Red Sox pitcher in a playoff game since Jon Lester during the 2008 ALDS — and the most in any postseason game across MLB since 2019.
Crochet’s efforts of ferrying Boston all the way to the final four outs of Tuesday’s game has the Red Sox in a prime position to push their season into next week, at least.
Since MLB adopted a best-of-three format for Wild Card Series in 2022, the winner of Game 1 has gone on to win all 12 series.
In a series with a slim margin for error, sometimes all it takes is a single bloop or blast to shift the fortunes of a team.
But as evidenced on Tuesday night in The Bronx, fortune tends to favor teams in October with the best weapon on the mound.
And in Game 1, the Red Sox’s ace delivered.
“Every time he takes the mound, we feel like we have a really good chance to win,” Alex Bregman said of Crochet. “He competes his tail off. … You can see it in his eyes before the game that he wanted it bad.
“Every time he takes the mound, we love going out there and playing defense behind him. Just a performance that big-time pitchers make. And that’s who he is.”